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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26448346">RECOIL</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/VulpeculaAnser/pseuds/VulpeculaAnser'>VulpeculaAnser</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Anxiety, BAMF Skye | Daisy Johnson, Childhood Trauma, Domestic Fluff, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Follows S1 Timeline, Found Family, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Past Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Past Medical Torture, Implied/Referenced Past Self-Harm, May-Coulson Adoption Services Have Arrived, Minor Leo Fitz/Jemma Simmons, Minor Phil Coulson/Melinda May, No Skye/Daisy ship, Panic Attacks, Philindaisy feels, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, References to Depression, Repressed Memories, Skye | Daisy Johnson Needs a Hug, Skye | Daisy Johnson's Superpowers, Skye | Daisy Johnson-centric, Team as Family, bus kids friendship, no skyeward</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-04-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 06:07:54</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>90,978</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26448346</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/VulpeculaAnser/pseuds/VulpeculaAnser</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“What’s your name?” the jerkwad who abducted her from her van and shoved a bag over her head demands.</p><p>“Skye,” she answers reluctantly, defiantly.</p><p>“What’s your <i>real</i> name?”</p><p>
  <i>Daisy.</i>
</p><p>Except she can’t tell them that, because she’s hunted and in hiding. Daisy has earthquake and vibrational powers, and has been on the run since she was fifteen years old, since she escaped from being further experimented on and dissected. She can’t be Daisy without living a life of constant anger, dread, and fear. So instead, she’s Skye.</p><p>
  <b>A Season 1 AU</b>
</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Leo Fitz &amp; Jemma Simmons &amp; Skye | Daisy Johnson, Phil Coulson &amp; Melinda May &amp; Skye | Daisy Johnson</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>426</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>714</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Hi guys. This is my first WIP multichapter fic for this fandom. I'm very excited to start posting it. I've pre-written about 5 chapters so far and I'm loving writing it. Big thanks to my wonderful friend Abby who has been cheerleading me.</p><p>The average chapter length is ~8.5k and given I'll be busy writing my dissertation, updates will be <b>fortnightly, on Sundays.</b> I sincerely hope that people will give this fic a chance, regardless of the wait time between chapters.</p><p>Trigger warnings are in the tags. If people wish for me to add any more, please politely let me know in the comments. An extra note: the BUS kids are slightly younger in age in this fic than in canon, purely for the reason that when I originally started watching SHIELD, I thought they were much younger than they actually were and I enjoy characterizing them that way.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“What’s your name?” the jerkwad who abducted her from her van and shoved a bag over her head demands. The other suit, older and wiser and probably the one in charge here, is eyeing her curiously, rather than with suspicion.</p><p>“Skye,” she answers reluctantly, defiantly.</p><p>“What’s your <i>real</i> name?”</p><p>
  <i>Daisy.</i>
</p><p>Except she can’t tell them that, because she’s hunted and in hiding. Daisy has earthquake and vibrational powers, and has been on the run since she was fifteen years old, since she escaped from being further experimented on and dissected. Daisy is what her father, who kidnapped her from school when she was fourteen, told her she was called, and is the name he is trying to find her by so he can take her back to that illegal, off-the-books scientific facility to be turned into a weapon.</p><p>She can’t be Daisy without living a life of constant anger, dread, and fear.</p><p>So instead, she’s Skye. Skye is an orphan used to abandonment, rejection, and disappointment, and she’s a hacktivist who lives on the streets, advocating for freedom of information and exposure of shady government dealings. Daisy is haunted, but Skye is a ghost. Skye is her shield from SHIELD.</p><p>But now they’ve found her, and she’s loath to admit she’s terrified, because if they know that Skye is Daisy? Everything is over.</p><p>“That can wait,” the curious suit says. “It's another name we need... a certain hero.”</p><p>Oh, they want to ask her about <i>Mike</i>. Not her. They don’t know about her.</p><p>She relaxes. The furious jerkwad just bristles, but the curious one notices. He tilts his head ever so slightly at her, eyebrows furrowing minutely in confusion and intrigue. His vibrations are calm and collected, but <i>inquisitive</i>. He’s perceptive, Skye notes. She needs to be wary of him.</p><p>She slips back into Skye’s cocky, self-assured, rebellious personality. For now, Daisy is safe. “What makes you think I know that?”</p>
<hr/><p>Coulson knows.</p><p>Or rather, he suspects. Just as Skye’s about to clamber into his red Corvette alongside him after they’ve safely dropped Mike Peterson’s son Ace at his aunt’s, his offer laying on the table of joining his SHIELD team, Coulson pulls his gun out of its holster and aims it at her.</p><p>Skye reacts on instinct and raises her hand to quake it apart in less than a second. The gun parts clatter and plink as they fall into his car’s footwell. Her heart is hammering a mile a minute, and she feels like she’s going to implode from stress. It’s not the first time she’s had a gun pointed at her - not by a long shot - but it’s the first time she’s been stupid enough to let her guard down and allow them this close to her.</p><p>“What the hell?” she snaps at him. “Were you about to fire that at me!? You could have killed me!”</p><p>“I knew it,” Coulson responds breathlessly, instead of apologizing. There’s a look of pure excitement on his face. “I knew I hadn’t imagined it. In the CCTV footage from the explosion, everybody else was focused on what Mr Peterson was doing. But in the background, I saw a woman and her child soar through the air out of the way of a falling piece of debris from the building. They looked like they’d been invisibly shoved. Then your reaction when Ward and I took you in -”</p><p>Skye backs away from him and the car, her heart in her throat as she trembles in panic. He knows. He’s a SHIELD agent and he knows that she has powers. It was so, so dumb of her to use her powers back there when she knew that there were CCTV cameras on the street, but she just hadn’t wanted that poor little girl and her mom to get hurt. There’s no point in running. It takes every bit of concentration and effort to keep the shaking contained, and her arms ache painfully as she refuses to set the quakes free.</p><p>“What do you want?” she asks hushedly, interrupting his enthusiastic self-debate over whether or not its telekinesis.</p><p>Coulson blinks at her. “I made you my offer,” he replies, bemused.</p><p>“No, what do you <i>want?</i>” she presses. “To leave me alone, to keep quiet, to not tell -” Her voice cracks. She inhales and exhales with a shudder, hunches her shoulders, and clenches her fists. “I’ve been on the run since I was fifteen because of these stupid powers.” She doesn’t know why she’s telling him, honestly, but it feels good to actually say it aloud for once. “I won’t let you take me to some SHIELD lab to be turned into a lab rat, and I won’t let you brainwash me into becoming an attack dog on a chain leash. I’ll fight you if I have to.”</p><p>“Skye, I don’t want anything from you.” He’s looking at her now with a softened expression, a faint smile of reassurance on his face that she can’t trust. “I made you an offer, and you can choose whether or not you want to take it. I’m not going to compromise you if you choose you don’t want to join the team. There is clearly a very good reason you’re trying to remain under the radar right now and I wouldn’t place you in danger like that. But if it’s any consolation to you… if you did join the team, we would protect you. We protect our own.”</p><p>Skye regards him silently for a moment. Protection, from SHIELD. Will that work, when SHIELD is who she needs to be protected from? But what Coulson is saying is that he and the team would protect her. Coulson, Ward, Fitzsimmons, May. They’re not typical government drone agents.</p><p>“I don’t want the others to know about what I can do,” she whispers.</p><p>“Okay,” Coulson agrees. “We’ll keep it between us, for now.”</p><p><i>For now.</i> That’s the condition. She can work with that, though.</p><p>She takes a cautious step back towards the car, narrowing her eyes in suspicion. Coulson is looking at her with such a patient and kind smile that she doesn’t know what to think. Clenching her jaw, Skye tries to imagine going back to her hacktivist life, in her van on the streets, struggling to get by while she throws her back out for the Rising Tide, who couldn’t care less what happens to her. She tries to imagine returning to an existence of ever-present paranoia and worry of being caught by her father and those <i>monsters</i> who call themselves scientists. </p><p>What Coulson is offering her is far better. Security. Access to hot water, warm food, and healthcare. Teammates. Already, he personally has shown her more care and compassion than <i>anybody</i> else she’s ever met, her entire life.</p><p>“I don’t want you telling them without my permission. I don’t want to have to use my powers on any of the missions, I don’t want to be forced into doing <i>anything</i> with them,” Skye insists. “No testing, no experiments. That includes all the blood tests and DNA profile stuff as well. If I join your team, I just wanna be your computer sciences and cybersecurity specialist and pattern analyst.”</p><p>“That all sounds reasonable to me,” Coulson nods, starting up Lola’s engine. “Although, warning you now, Simmons will definitely want to give you a physical and have your DNA on file. I’ll run interference for you if you want to switch out or delete the samples.” He checks his cell phone. “I don’t want to pressure you, Skye, but I’ve got to get to the airfield in the next ten minutes. They’ve called in an 0-8-4 they want my team to investigate.”</p><p>She hesitates, then asks, “What’s an 0-8-4?”</p><p>“You’ve got the next ten seconds to decide if you want to find out,” Coulson replies, gesturing to the empty seat in the Corvette next to him.</p><p>Skye bites her lip. And then she opens the passenger side door and slides onto the seat, simultaneously buckling up and making up her mind. Coulson doesn’t even try to hide his grin.</p><p>“There’s no way we can make it to the airfield in less than ten minutes.”</p><p>It turns out that they can. Because Coulson’s car can <i>fly</i>.</p><p>Ten minutes later, she’s carrying a duffel bag and cardboard box of belongings up onto their gigantic plane, which she tentatively attempts to call <i>home</i> in her head, while Fitzsimmons welcome her joyously, Ward and May look on with frowns and Coulson sports a ridiculous beaming smile that makes him look like her proud father.</p>
<hr/><p>Their first mission together as a team is to track down an 0-8-4 in Peru.</p><p>An object of unknown origin, <i>kind of like you</i>, Coulson jokingly says.</p><p>He has no idea how right he is. Her flashdrive, loaded with the redacted files and stolen lab reports that make up the mystery of Daisy the walking natural diaster, burns a hole in her pocket.</p><p>Skye breaks her own rules not to ever use her powers around the team when the BUS is hijacked and she’s forced to quake a man across the cabin when he aims a semi-automatic at Fitz’s head. Fortunately, there’s so much chaos in the moment, with the side of the plane having been busted open like a soda can as they try to gain back control, that nobody notices.</p><p>It leaves her shaken, though. Mostly because it pushes her to begrudgingly accept that she’s always going to feel utterly petrified at the idea of any of the others finding out who she really is. It makes her feel like her time on the team is going to be fleeting, because once they find out - and she won’t be able to keep it secret forever - Skye will have to run again.</p><p>Maybe that’s why she responds to the Rising Tide call-to-arms.</p><p>After they watch the 0-8-4 be flung into space, Skye decides to help clean up the BUS. It’ll be something to keep her trembling hands busy and quiet the black storm of guilt raging in her mind. There are already SHIELD maintenance men working on repairing the hole in the fuselage, the shattered glass, and bullet damage everywhere. She tides her bunk, which has been torn apart by Reyes’ men; after that, she organizes all of the kitchen cabinets. She remembers Coulson’s office being wrecked and figures that he might appreciate it if she helps clear up in there as well.</p><p>“Oh, sorry.” She immediately comes to a halt when she accidentally walks in on Coulson having a meeting with a tall black man wearing an eyepatch and a black trenchcoat. “I - I didn’t mean to interrupt. I thought you were still down on the ramp with the others,” she says pathetically, her cheeks flushing red.</p><p>“What did you want to do in here, Skye?” Coulson questions, more inquiring than accusing.</p><p>“Your office was trashed, I just wanted to help…” she trails off. She doesn’t know how to put into words that she’s grateful for everything he’s done for her so far and wants to show her thanks. She doesn’t know how to tell him that in barely a couple of days, he’s been more of a father figure to her than any foster dad she’s ever had. “I - I’m sorry. I’ll go. I really didn’t mean to intrude.”</p><p>Before she can turn and scuttle away, vibrations buzzing at her fingertips as embarrassment floods through her, she hears the man dressed like a pirate ask Coulson dubiously, “This is the girl?”</p><p>“Yes, sir.”</p><p>The man appraises her. She feels like a specimen under a microscope. Instinctively, she ducks her head and tenses her shoulders, because if Coulson is calling this guy ‘sir’, then he’s got to be a pretty big authority figure within SHIELD. She doesn’t like authority figures, and authority figures often don’t like her.</p><p>“<i>Skye</i>, huh?” the man asks. She swallows and bobs her head in a silent nod. He knows that it’s a fake name. Does he know who she really is? “Director Fury,” the man introduces himself, offering her his hand, making Skye’s jaw drop as she shakes it. She’s meeting the Director of SHIELD himself. “You try and keep your old man here out of trouble, alright, kid? God knows he needs as many people as possible watching his back.”</p><p><i>My old man?</i> Skye raises an eyebrow and glances over at Coulson, who is now looking up at the ceiling as if he’s praying to be struck by lightning before the Director mortifies him further. “Of course, sir,” she agrees.</p><p>“And I mean it when I say no damn fish tanks,” Fury scowls at Coulson. He stalks past them both to the door, only peering back at them briefly to give a one-fingered salute. “Shake you later, Skye.”</p><p>Her heart drops like a stone in her chest. There’s absolutely no way in hell that he’s plucked those words from nowhere, or chosen them by chance. He’s saying that <i>deliberately</i>. “Shake you later,” she echoes numbly. It’s only once the door has slammed shut behind the Director that Skye wheels around and hisses, “What did you tell him about me?”</p><p>Coulson startles. “Only that you’re my new consultant, a cyber specialist. He called you a risk, but he does seem to agree with me that you’re a good addition to the team, and with proper training could become a great SHIELD agent one day - only if you wanted to,” he hastens to add. “Why?”</p><p>“Just… what he said,” she stammers. “I thought you might have told him about…”</p><p>“You mean your -” Coulson wiggles his fingers in what Skye supposes is meant to indicate her powers. He’s such a dork it’s not even funny. “No, I haven’t said anything to anyone. I keep my promises, Skye. You asked me not to tell anybody, so I won’t.” He cocks his head with a thoughtful expression. “‘Shake you later’, that’s what you’re talking about that’s got your feathers ruffled?”</p><p>Skye rubs the back of her neck, averting her eyes. “I guess I’m just jumpy.”</p><p>“So shaking things, that’s something to do with your powers?”</p><p>Skye rolls her eyes. “You know that pressing me for answers isn’t going to get you anywhere,” she reminds him.</p><p>“You’re really going to keep your old man in the dark?” Coulson complains, but with a teasing smile.</p><p>“Don’t call yourself that, and yes. I’ll fill you in when it’s necessary. Until then, it’s just better if you forget all about it. Just… know that you don’t have to worry about me when it comes to defending myself in the field.” Skye bends down to gather a pile of folders that have been swept onto the floor in her arms, so she can dump them onto his mess of a desk. “Now I came to help you clean up your office, not let you needle me. Should I make myself scarce, or…?”</p><p>“Actually, I need to debrief you about what happened, get your account for the paperwork.”</p><p>“Should have stayed with Fitzsimmons and let them babble to me about the Slingshot.”</p>
<hr/><p>Over the next week, Skye settles into living on the BUS, and living with the team. It’s strange to be sharing space with people after having lived by herself in her van for the past five years. It’s kind of strange, actually, as she’s the youngest on the plane at twenty years old, yet she feels like Fitzsimmons, both twenty one, are the little siblings. Maybe it’s because Skye was forced to grow up and mature at a younger age, became independent as a teenager by necessity, while both of the scientists still have an air of childlike joy and innocence to them.</p><p>Just as Coulson warned her, Simmons puts her through a physical and takes blood. She claims that her DNA is just going to be put on file in case of any future medical emergencies, but Skye knows that her file is not going to be secure enough for her liking. She knows that the people she’s running from will easily be able to access it. So she runs on a treadmill, lets Simmons take her baseline vitals, and allows the biochemist to check her over to determine if she’s fit and healthy enough for fieldwork.</p><p>Simmons says absolutely nothing when she records her resting heartrate at 110 beats per minute, her core body temperature at 3 degrees higher than a normal human being, and metabolic rate of that of a star athlete. She says nothing when she sees the dozens of scars, pale and white and jagged, marring Skye’s skin. She says nothing when Skye flinches from every needle, says nothing when she trembles at the sight of the white lab coat and blue Latex gloves. She doesn’t pry, but quickens her pace so she can finish the physical with clinical efficiency, but fantastic bedside manner. Skye wonders what the biochemist must be thinking she’s suffered through, but decides she doesn’t want to know. Everybody has their traumas. Simmons is respecting her privacy and that is something she greatly appreciates.</p><p>But when Simmons draws her blood, Skye deletes it from the analyzing program. She wipes all trace of it from the medical file. Simmons finds out, of course, and goes to Coulson lamenting about possible glitches in the system that have caused the loss of data. Coulson catches Skye’s eye. She stares back at him, steely and cold and scared. He tells Simmons not to worry about it, and that consultants don’t need detailed medical files anyway. Skye breathes.</p><p>Coulson has instated himself as her supervising officer; even as a consultant, there’s basic training she requires to become a fully-functioning member of the field team, including self-defense and firearms. He’s delegated her physical training to Ward, who at first Skye was certain hated her, and would be disinclined to help her out. The specialist seems to have remembered, however, how Skye saved his life during the hijacking. She pretends to have no idea what she’s doing when he puts her in front of a punching bag, or places a Glock in her hands.</p><p>The reality of it is that Skye knows how to fight. She knows how to fire a gun. Those sort of skills were required when being hunted. She’s pretty sure she could take Ward down on the mats, if she wanted to. She wouldn’t even need to use her powers to do it. But it’s better that everybody on the team thinks she’s some naive, defenseless little girl who doesn’t know the safety from the mag release. It’s better to be underestimated.</p><p>The morning that SHIELD 616 gets assigned another mission, Skye fakes some lame punches at the bag in front of Ward, complaining about his morning work-out routine for her.</p><p>“I’m making you do ten push-ups for every terrible punch,” Ward growls. Skye sticks her tongue out at him and deliberately messes up her next hit. “You think this is funny? That’s ten.”</p><p>“Better push-ups than pull-ups. I don’t ever want to do another pull-up again.” Mostly because of the awful aches and pains she gets in her arms, which have already been battered by her powers, when she lifts her torso.</p><p>“When you find yourself hanging off the edge of a building twenty stories up, you're gonna want to do at least one,” Ward snorts in amusement, but then he groans again at her posture. “God, Skye, straighten up and keep your hands raised. You’re just asking to get jabbed in the throat.”</p><p>“I’m a consultant, not a specialist like you and May. Why’d I have to do this?”</p><p>“Because when you’re out in the field with us, you need to know how to protect youself. May, Coulson and I have already got Fitzsimmons to worry about, we don’t want to have to waste time to rescue you too.” Ward runs a hand through his hair in frustration when she punches the bag pathetically again. “Stop playing around, Skye, Jesus… look, this isn’t a game. You might think it is now, but trust me, you’ll really wish you took this seriously when you’re mid-mission and a guy is about to beat the hell out of you. Soon there’ll be a moment when you have to make the hard call, where you have to choose whether you’re gonna commit to this training or bail.”</p><p>“You talking about a defining moment?” Skye quirks an eyebrow. “Because I think mine was when I was seventeen and hacked the Pentagon for the first time because I wanted to see whether the Roswell alien crash landing conspiracies were true.” <i>Fourteen, a solid rock cocoon encasing her entire body and then an earthquake measuring 8.0 on the Richter scale shaking her free, changing her life forever.</i></p><p>Ward emits a noise of disgust. “That snark isn’t gonna save you in a fight.” He grabs her fists, wheeling her back around to face the bag. “This is. C’mon, one-two.”</p><p>Skye raises her foot and brings it down in a light stomp on top of his, before elbowing him in the chest and sending him reeling back a step. “Three-four?” she teases. </p><p>He huffs unhappily, tired with her whining and joking around, and leaves her to punch at the bag for the next ten minutes so he can go and speak to Coulson when May announces over the PA system that they’ve changed course for new orders.</p><p>As soon as Ward’s gone, Skye exhales slowly and corrected her stance. She rolls back her shoulders until her muscles are loose and pliant, rather than stiff from anxiety like before. And then she hits the bag, over and over and over again. Properly, this time. Within a couple of minutes, she’s zoned out, focused completely on how her powers amplify the resounding vibrations that ripple up her arm and through her body, each time she strikes the bag.</p><p>“Skye.” She jolts, rocking back on her heels and lowering her wrapped fists. Her eyes fly up to the gallery. May is standing with her hands on the railings, observing her with a sharp glint in her dark eyes. Skye’s stomach flip-flops. “Briefing in three,” May informs her shortly.</p><p>Skye nods, and begins unwrapping her hands.</p><p>“Drop your elbows slightly, you’re tensing too much when recoiling,” May says, looking pointedly at the bag. “And maybe don’t waste Ward’s time by getting him to teach you basics, when you already know what you’re doing.”</p><p>Her throat dries up. She nods again warily.</p><p>May continues to stare down at her for a second before turning on her heel and vanishing towards the briefing room. Forget being cautious around Coulson… May is the person on the BUS Skye is going to have to be the most careful around now. May knows she’s deliberately downplaying her skills; it would be stupid to think that she’ll let this go.</p><p>And she doesn’t. When the team agrees that Skye will be the one to infiltrate Quinn’s mansion complex in Malta to be SHIELD’s inside woman, as she isn’t bound by international laws as a consultant, May orders her to follow her. Her heart jackrabbiting in her chest, Skye tails her back to the cargo hold, where the training mats remain spread on the floor. <i>May</i> is going to be training her? </p><p>“If your cover is blown, there’s a likelihood that Quinn will end up pointing a gun at your face,” May tells her, her voice flat. “You’ll need to disarm him, take the gun, and aim it back at him.”</p><p>“Okay,” she says warily. </p><p>The specialist shoots her an expectant look. “Do you know how to do that?”</p><p>Usually when a gun is pointed at her face, Skye just quakes it apart. Quinn, however, is a dangerous individual with a lot of shady business and corrupt friends - it’s possible that he’s got connections to her father and the organization he was working with when Skye was captured and being experimented on. That means that she can’t use her powers in his vicinity, not even to protect herself.</p><p>“I don’t know how to disarm somebody, but I know how to use a gun,” she replies honestly.</p><p>May’s eyes flicker up and down her scrutinizingly. “If I teach you how to grab the gun, will you be able to pull the trigger?”</p><p>Skye sets her jaw. “Yes,” she replies, her voice stony.</p><p>May doesn’t ask more questions. She shows her how to disarm someone and steal their gun. Copying the specialist’s movements, it doesn’t take long for Skye to learn. Judging by the miniscule raise of her eyebrows, May is impressed by her ability to pick up new skills quickly.</p><p>Of course, later on during the mission, her new skill suddenly becomes incredibly useful when Skye is forced to disarm Quinn. Coulson and Ward are already on site, but they’re focused on rescuing Dr Hall, so she’s on her own. She aims the gun at Quinn with a steady hand, keeping a heedful eye on the guards rallying behind the billionaire.</p><p>“So SHIELD taught you a few things,” Quinn laughs mockingly. “But do you have what it takes to pull the trigger?”</p><p>Skye makes a show of lowering the gun - and fires a round into Quinn’s calf. The man screams out and buckles to the floor. She has what it takes, and so much more. What she needs now, however, is a distraction; shooting him in the leg, rather than the head or chest, provides the perfect one. She discards the gun and takes a flying leap off the balcony into the pool below, using her powers to cushion her landing.</p><p>Minutes later, she runs into Coulson, who has apparently come running to search for her while Ward deals with Dr Hall and the gravitonium weapon.</p><p>“Skye!” he shouts, sounding relieved.</p><p>He doesn’t see the guard appearing out of the bushes from the side just behind him, cocking a semi-automatic. Fear lashes through Skye’s heart like a barbed whip. She’s only known Coulson for a fortnight and already, he’s wormed his way into her heart as the father-figure she’s always wanted. She can’t imagine losing him.</p><p>Adrenalin pumping through her veins after all the action, making her giddy and lightheaded, is messing with her decision making. That’s what Skye blames when she raises her hand and quakes the attacker against the nearest wall, his skull connecting with the stone with an awful crunch.</p><p>Coulson stops dead in his tracks. Takes her in: trembling all over, soaked to the skin, with an undoubtedly feral gleam in her eyes as she drops her raised arm. His head whips around to glimpse at the man she just probably killed. When he turns back to look at her, there’s no hint of revulsion or terror on his face - just a little bit of surprise, sympathy, and immediate understanding.</p><p>“So <i>that’s</i> what you can do,” he says in awe.</p><p>“Yeah, we can talk about this later,” she rushes out. “We need to get to Ward.”</p>
<hr/><p>After Coulson has whisked off the gravitonium somewhere secure and returned to the BUS, Skye attempts to avoid him by any means possible.</p><p>She is seriously not looking forward to having what undeniably will be an incredibly uncomfortable conversation with her SO about the capabilities and limits of her powers - which will end up being a conversation about how she got them in the first place. She’s in a low mood already because she shot somebody today, as well as quaked someone into a wall. Talking about her powers and past will bring traumatic memories swelling to the surface, which she’s not mentally prepared to deal with right now.</p><p>Knowing that the first place Coulson will search for her is her bunk, Skye hastily showers, braids her damp hair, wiggles into PJs, and goes down to the lab. Fitz and Simmons are there sitting at the holotable with beers, resigned and depressed after the loss of their former Academy teacher. They toss Skye a soda, barely blinking at the sight of her in pajamas. Being the only underage member of the team is annoying at times like these, because while she doesn’t drink much in fear of losing control of her powers, she would love an ice-cold cider to chase away the tightness in her chest. She listens to Fitzsimmons as they tell her wacky stories from their Academy days, and enjoys the lack of pressure to talk about herself.</p><p>Coulson doesn’t find her, so either he doesn’t know she’s here or he’s leaving her alone. By the time it strikes midnight, Fitzsimmons are both tipsy and dead on their feet. They need to lock up the lab, so they herd Skye out apologetically and wish her goodnight.</p><p>“Oh, I, er - I heard Ward and May arguing with Coulson about you earlier,” Fitz tells her awkwardly. “So good luck… with… that.”</p><p>Well, that’s ominous. She’s too exhausted to worry about it, though, even though her body is so wired and tense that she knows insomnia has her in its grips tonight. Sighing, Skye shuffles through the plane into the kitchen, not bothering to turn any of the lights on as she can use her powers to echolocate, sensing the vibrations of obstacles as she moves about in the darkness. She’s hungry, but it’s far too late for her to consider cooking something… not that she actually knows how to properly cook. Microwaved popcorn is what she ends up making.</p><p>She’s about to grab a glass of milk from the fridge when the lights suddenly switch on. Not expecting the abrupt brightness, and having not sensed the vibrations of anybody approaching, Skye freezes. Her muscles seize as she inhales sharply with a gasp; before she knows what’s happening, the glass falls from her hand and shatters on the floor.</p><p>“Do you always wander around at night with the lights off?” May asks.</p><p>Skye just continues staring at her with wide, terrified eyes, holding her breath. Her gaze darts down to the smashed glass; razor-sharp shards blanket the floor, inches from her bare feet. Memories flood her mind of when she was six years old and accidentally dropped a mug; her foster mother at the time exploded into a fit of rage. The woman hit her over the head with a frying pan and locked her in the downstairs closet for the day as punishment. Skye is aware that punishments don’t work like that for adults, but she can’t help but instinctively flinch away from May, knowing her to be a stern female authority figure like that old foster mother was.</p><p>Tremors of apprehension run down her spine, through her legs, and into the floor. For a second, the entire plane quivers in response to her agitation. Hopefully, the others will think it’s turbulence. Skye swiftly shuts the quakes down, pulling the destructive vibrations into herself. Her arms throb painfully. She doesn’t need to roll up her pajama top sleeves to know that bruises are blossoming from her wrists all the way up to her elbows. Tugging her sleeves down self-consciously, she bows her head, not wanting May to see how upset she is.</p><p>But May seems to sense it, anyway. Without saying a word, she plucks a dustpan and broom from the maintenance closet in the corner of the room and begins sweeping up the broken glass. Skye would normally protest and say that it was her fault for dropping it, so she should clean it up, but her throat is thick and tears are brimming in her eyes, and she’s concerned that if she speaks, her voice will break.</p><p>“Wear socks or shoes around the BUS,” May advises her, in a calm voice. She doesn’t sound mad at all, which allows Skye to relax somewhat. She didn’t realize she was so anxious about the specialist yelling at her. “Next time we land and have free time, you should pick up some rubber-soled slipper socks. They’ll protect your feet from any debris that might be lying around from Fitzsimmons’ experiments.”</p><p>Skye remains silent, watching as she pours the glass fragments into the trash.</p><p>May doesn’t seem to care that Skye isn’t talking to her. “No doubt Coulson will tell you the next time you see him, but I’m taking over your physical training from Ward. I will expect you in the lounge at 5am on the mark every morning.” She turns to leave, but adds, “Your past is your past, but if there is ever another instance you feel too nervous to concentrate when being trained, to the point where you are actively disrupting your instruction, you should tell Coulson so he can change your teacher. A lot of women feel uncomfortable being trained by men significantly larger and stronger than them. Ward is not going to be offended if that’s what you’re worried about.”</p><p>It’s the most Skye has ever heard her say in one sitting - perhaps ever. And May is… comforting her? Reassuring her? <i>Caring about her?</i> She feels weird about it, either way. Her issue with Ward is not that he’s intimidating, but telling May that would mean she would have to explain her actual problem, which there’s no way she’s going to do.</p><p>“Thank you,” she mutters.</p><p>May narrows her eyes and then gives a short nod. “Right calf?”</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“Quinn. You shot him in his right calf. You didn’t hesitate. Why?”</p><p>Skye shifts on her feet uneasily. She completely forgot about the fact that May and Fitzsimmons were on comms and would have heard what happened. How is she meant to answer that question? “Because he’s right-footed and I needed to incapacitate him as well as create a distraction so I could escape,” she replies, unsure. She doesn’t comment at all on why she didn’t hesitate to shoot the billionaire, because admitting that she’s shot people before is not something she’s ready to do yet.</p><p>Fortunately, May doesn’t force her to explain. Her expression stays neutral. “Stop avoiding Coulson,” she calls over her shoulder as she departs. “Delaying the inevitable only ever makes things worse. And go to sleep, Skye. You have to be up in four hours, after all.”</p><p>It’s only once Skye has finished her popcorn, drained a glass of milk, and is heading to her bunk that she realizes that May just sort of <i>mothered</i> her.</p>
<hr/><p>The situation with Akela Amador gives Skye a lot to think about. For one thing, it actually increases her amount of trust and belief in Coulson. For the past five years, Skye has struggled with the idea that she’s a monster, who doesn’t deserve a second chance. Today, Coulson went out on a limb to extend a lifeline to his former protégé, despite the fact she initially appeared to be a criminal.</p><p>It’s proved to Skye that he’s the type of person she can potentially rely on if things go South for her. She’s <i>never</i> had somebody like that in her life before. It feels an awful lot like having a father, and considering her biological father is a psychopathic maniac who allowed her to be tortured and experimented on, she doesn’t know precisely how to feel about it.</p><p>They haven’t talked yet about what went down in Malta. She’s been too busy with training; May is a fierce, stern but incredible teacher, who consolidates Skye’s existing skills and teaches her new techniques to improve her agility, control, and power in combat situations. Yes, she and Coulson have talked mission things, but they haven’t discussed anything distinctly personal. Skye is dreading telling him about her powers and past, quite truthfully. She’s been trying to convince herself over the last few days that Coulson can’t be <i>that</i> repulsed or horrified by her very being considering he hasn’t thrown her off the plane yet - and he saw her toss a man into a wall like a beanbag.</p><p>She’s starkly aware that her days here are numbered; she feels like an idiot for opting in for the Rising Tide mission now that she’s come to see the BUS as her home, and the team as her family. With that in mind, she hates the idea that Coulson might be biting his tongue and allowing her to avoid him because of the communication breakdown between them.</p><p>Skye is curled up in the back of the team’s SUV with her laptop, looking through old Operations Academy test papers May recommended, when the door is yanked open. Irritated that her sanctuary has been disturbed, she glances up to snap, but her annoyed outburst dies in her throat when she sees that it’s Coulson who is nervously hovering with his hand on the door.</p><p>“Hi,” he greets her.</p><p>“Hi,” she echoes.</p><p>“Ward said you were taking personal time,” he says, with a faint smile. “Do you… still need more personal time, or…?”</p><p>Well, she can’t avoid him or this conversation any longer. Skye’s lips tick up in a small smile of her own as she shakes her head. “Slide on in. There’s always room for A.C.”</p><p>She shuffles sideways to make space so he can clamber in next to her and shut the door.</p><p>“What’s wrong with ‘Agent Coulson’ or just ‘Coulson’?” he sighs.</p><p>Shrugging, Skye closes her laptop and leans back, staring up at the ceiling. “A.C. is cooler.” A comfortable silence falls between them for a moment. Knowing Coulson isn’t going to break it, lest he feels like he’s pushing boundaries, she glimpses over at him. He’s settling into his seat, fingers entwined and his hands resting on his stomach. “Not many people would have made that call to give Amador a second chance.”</p><p>He shrugs. “I got one. Seems only fair I extend the same opportunity to others.”</p><p>“Including me?” she whispers, her voice deafening in the quiet car.</p><p>He hums softly under his breath. “You deserved one. You know, I see why you like it in here.”</p><p>“Yeah.” Skye closes her eyes wistfully. “It's kind of like my van. But without thieves and bums trying to break in.” That makes her SO chuckle. “It's more peaceful here. It's also cool knowing that someone has my back... no matter what.”</p><p>“Peaceful’s good,” Coulson agrees.</p><p>Silence falls again, this time for a good couple of minutes. It’s time, Skye realizes. It’s time she starts opening up to him a little, giving him tiny pieces of information about her life. He trusts her, and while she doesn’t entirely trust him… she means it when she says she knows he has her six covered.</p><p>“The BUS is loud,” she tells him slowly. “The engines are powerful, and the vibrations are… constant, and deafening to the point of causing headaches. Being in here helps quiet it all for a little while. Helps me wind down and relax.”</p><p>“... the vibrations?” He sounds confused. “The BUS is huge and internally insulated. You shouldn’t be able to feel them.”</p><p>“My powers, they’re, um… they’re vibration-based,” she explains, tense and nervous. “Generating, manipulating, channeling. Mostly molecular and seismic. Part of that is being able to sense the vibrations of everything around me… all the time. It’s like permanent tinnitus. I used to get pretty awful migraines because of it, before I adjusted.”</p><p>“How long did that take?” Coulson’s voice is casual, but she can hear the slight rise in pitch that indicates that he’s excited she’s offering information freely.</p><p>Skye frowns, trying to remember. Those immediate months after she escaped from the facility are a blur, although she’s not sure whether or not that’s because her brain has blocked them out as a coping mechanism, or because she was so ill. “About a year or two. About as long as it took for me to learn how to control them. There are still side effects but nothing as bad as those migraines… I’m glad I don’t get those anymore.”</p><p>Coulson turns to face her, lines of worry wrinkling his forehead. “What kind of side effects?”</p><p>She doesn’t respond immediately, internally debating over whether or not she wants to expose that particular vulnerability to him. After a minute or two of thought, Skye reckons that he’s bound to find out eventually anyway, or see one day when she accidentally forgets to wear long sleeves. She’s had to live with the bruises for the past five years, and the days where the skin of her arms are pale and unmarred are few and far between; it’s a normal part of Skye’s life for her to be bruised and battered, to the point where she’s got used to it. As her SO, Coulson deserves to - and <i>needs</i> - to know about this limitation of hers.</p><p>“Don’t freak out,” she says tiredly, and then shrugs off her sweater to show him her arms. There’s a mixture of fresh purple and older yellow and green bruises wrapping around her wrists, and although they are healing, they still look atrocious.</p><p>Coulson pales. He sits up from his slumped position and angles his whole body towards her so he can examine the bruises more closely. His dominant hand shakes as he reaches out to delicately brush his thumb over an especially nasty looking patch of mottled skin. “Oh, Skye,” he murmurs, sounding terribly sad. “Why didn’t you say something before?”</p><p>“I couldn’t. If I go and see Simmons, she’ll want an explanation that I can’t give her,” she admits. “It’s my own fault, anyway. My powers are linked to my emotions. When I get nervous or upset or angry, I can’t always control them as well. I have to internalize the vibrations. I can’t risk releasing them because… well, we’re flying in a rigid metal pressurized container at 40,000 feet, and I could crack it like an egg and kill us all if I’m not careful.” Embarrassed by how much attention Coulson is showing her arms, she slides back against the far side door and covers them with her sweater. “It’s not a big deal. I just see it as part of the terms and conditions. I control the vibrations, but there’s always going to be kickback. You don’t shoot a rifle without expecting the recoil to wrench your shoulder.”</p><p>“It is a big deal if it’s hurting you. If it’s hindering you during everyday life.” Coulson looks like he’s about to cry, his face ashen. “You need to tell me these sorts of things, Skye. We can try and get you help - I’m sure Fitzsimmons -”</p><p>“I don’t want Fitz or Simmons to know yet,” she interrupts. “I’m - I’m just getting used to having you knowing and I don’t think -” She cuts herself off, glaring down at her clenched fists on her lap as tears burn in her eyes.</p><p>“Talk to me, Skye,” Coulson says quietly. “What are you thinking?”</p><p>A shudder runs down her spine as she curls up protectively into a ball, resting her head against the SUV’s door. “I’ve never told anybody myself before. Everybody who knows found out without me wanting them to. Just this once, I want to be able to <i>choose</i> when to tell the others. Because I - I know that as soon as they find out they’re going to see me as a threat and probably be afraid and Fitzsimmons will dissect me in the lab or something -”</p><p>“They wouldn’t do that to you.” Coulson appears stunned she would even begin to think that. “They might want to do tests, but they wouldn’t do anything without your consent. And they both adore you like you’re their little sister, they would never do anything to hurt you.”</p><p>“But they’re scientists.”</p><p>Coulson looks even more taken back - and even a little insulted, but there’s mostly concern on his face. “<i>No</i> SHIELD scientist would ever do tests or experiments on a person without their consent. They certainly wouldn’t try and cause deliberate harm to somebody.”</p><p>Skye knows otherwise, but stays quiet, because she’s not ready to share that yet.</p><p>“Skye.” Coulson waits until she reluctantly lifts her gaze to make eye contact with him. “Did you -” he pauses, rephrases, and asks gently, “Is there a… <i>reason</i>… why you don’t trust scientists?”</p><p>“Don’t make me tell the team, please,” is all she responds with, a whispered plea that she despises herself for making, because nothing makes her feel weaker than resorting to begging to get her way.</p><p>Her SO doesn’t respond. It’s because he can’t promise her that there won’t be a time in the future when the rest of the team <i>needs</i> to know, and she’ll have to reveal her powers whether she’s prepared to or not. Skye appreciates the fact that he’s not lying to her. Especially considering that she’s lying to him about why she agreed to join the team in the first place.</p>
<hr/><p>Everything promptly goes to hell as soon as Skye gets involved in trying to track down a pyrokinetic powered individual in Hong Kong, learns about the horror that is SHIELD’s <i>Index</i>, and realizes the first person she’s ever trusted to know about her powers is going to destroy the life she’s built with Coulson and the team so far.</p><p>Par for the course.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thank you to everybody who commented so supportively on the first chapter. I'm delighted to hear you're enjoying reading the fic so far, as I've had SO much fun writing it!</p><p>I understand as well that the 2 weeks between updates might be frustrating for some of you, but given that I'm a part-time student, part-time lab tech (and with all the shit going on with COVID I'm SWAMPED) there might be a time where I find I can't regularly write, and I don't want to disrupt a posting schedule and disappoint you more... the 2 weeks between chapters gives me time to write ahead and edit appropriately considering the lengths of the chapters (which only get longer from here on). I've pre-written about 7 so far. If people would honestly prefer weekly updates, and be okay with me taking unexpected hiatuses, feel free to let me know in the comments. Thank you for your patience, in advance.</p><p>Trigger warnings in the tags as always.</p><p>Hope you enjoy x</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Learning that there are other people out there in the world with superpowers - other people who could be <i>like her</i> - is one thing. Learning about SHIELD’s methods when it comes to tagging, monitoring and labelling them like they’re all dangerous wild animals, is another thing entirely.</p><p>And it’s petrifying.</p><p>The team’s half-hearted platitudes that Indexing is for the safety of the powered individual as well as everybody else around them ring false. The fact Coulson has never mentioned the Index before and watches her worriedly after she finds out about it, gives her all the information she requires to make a judgement. Being placed on the Index is something she should fear. It’s yet another reason why SHIELD terrifies her.</p><p>It’s why when she meets up with Miles for the first time in months after he hacks SHIELD and is placed on their radar, having connections to the pyrokinetic they’re after, Skye wonders for a moment if she should take this opportunity now to bail and vanish into the shadows.</p><p>She knows how to disappear. She’s done it many, many times before. It would be too easy. Painfully easy.</p><p>Then May is standing outside the door with a steely expression when Miles sends her out to grab food for them both, Skye’s phone that she must have swiped in one hand, and handcuffs dangling from the other. Beneath the stoic coldness on the specialist’s face, Skye thinks she sees sadness.</p><p>Everything is crashing and burning. Skye should quake May and run. If she ran now, knocked May out, vanished... SHIELD probably wouldn’t be able to track her down. But would that be fair to the team? To Coulson, who gave her a chance, who has believed in her - trusted her, to some extent?</p><p>She doesn’t run. Instead, she surrenders, knowing nothing is ever going to be the same again.</p>
<hr/><p>“You’re seriously planning on staying with these government assholes, Daisy?” Miles asks her incredulously, as they drop him off in Hong Kong after slapping a band on his wrist that restricts him from using any electronic devices - and therefore stops him from hacking into SHIELD ever again.</p><p>Thank god Coulson is the only person who hears him use her real name. He’s standing on the gallery, watching on judgementally as Skye says goodbye to the person who she considers her only friend outside of the group on the BUS - and now that they consider her a traitor, possibly her only friend in the world. Miles has been her ally since she was sixteen and despite what the team thinks, there’s nothing remotely romantic or sexual between them - just a camaraderie that was established when he helped her break into SHIELD’s secure files and she saved his life by quaking him out of the way of a speeding truck.</p><p>If she had any sense, she would walk off the plane alongside him. But she remembers Coulson’s soft words about her deserving a second chance when she finally opened up to him about her powers in the SUV, and figures that if she bails now, she’ll lose everything. Not only that but… she <i>can’t</i> leave now. She cares about the team. And Coulson trusted her - believed in her, so she can’t let this be how it all ends. There’s unfinished business here, as she extracted files from the building’s mainframe which might give them a lead on Centipede, but the team needs her to decrypt and analyze them.</p><p>“If they let me,” Skye replies to Miles, defeated and quiet. </p><p>Miles narrows his eyes in confusion, and then seeing her despondent expression, suddenly looks stricken. “Did you make some sort of deal with them? Your services for their protection? Did I just screw that all up for you?”</p><p>“They don’t know that I need protection,” she confesses, staring down at her shoes. “I suppose I’ll have to tell them now.”</p><p>“Oh.” Miles’ eyes flicker up to Coulson on the gallery, and he grimaces. When he glances back down at her, his expression is apologetic. “I hope you find what you’re looking for here, Skye.”</p><p>She nods, and with a heavy heart, watches him stride away down the ramp, his hair tousled by the hot, muggy Hong Kong breeze. There’s no telling when she’ll see him again, or if she ever will see him again. Now he’s gone, though, she has to face the music. Her chest fills with an aching, painful fear of the conversation she’s going to have with her SO, and it grasps and squeezes at her heart and lungs, making it difficult to take anything but shallow, frantic breaths.</p><p>Coulson’s voice is harsh and cold behind her as he orders, “My office. Now.”</p><p>Trying to fight off her oncoming panic attack, Skye follows him through the BUS at a sedated pace. She drags her heels as adrenalin thrums in her veins and she squashes her fight or flight urges, even as she sees Fitzsimmons’ betrayed puppy dog eyes and senses Ward’s enraged glare poking daggers into the back of her neck. May scares her; her expression is schooled into a blank, impassive stare, but her vibrations roar at Skye from across the cabin as she passes the specialist sitting at the minibar with a finger of scotch. May is disappointed, and that’s worse than her being angry.</p><p>Coulson is by far the worst. Because he’s <i>devastated</i>. And Skye did that. She’s the reason he’s feeling that way. She’ll never forgive herself for this.</p><p>“Sit,” he barks at her, holding his office door open for her and pointing at the chair in front of his desk.</p><p>She holds her breath as she walks past him, trying to withhold her flinch, and does as he demands. When he slams the door shut, however, she can’t help but jump in her seat at the sudden sound, and then cringe away from him as he approaches from behind her. The quakes are bubbling up inside of her as her anxiety and dismay intensify. Terrified of how Coulson might react if she accidentally starts shaking everything in the room, she clamps down on the vibrations, internally shrieking at her mind that she deserves the shooting pains spreading from her shoulders down to the tips of her fingers.</p><p>“I - I didn’t want anything to -” she tries.</p><p>“Stop lying,” he thunders, towering over her. “Since the moment you stepped onto this plane, you’ve been lying to my <i>face</i>, to all of us. I let you keep your secrets - I <i>helped</i> you keep them. I broke god knows how many rules to make sure you could stay on this plane. I trusted you, and I thought you trusted me back, but now I see it was stupid to ever think you’d be anything less than the risk May and Ward told me you’d be. I stood up for you to my team down there. Some of us even started to believe in you, risked our lives for you! And you just threw it all back in our faces!”</p><p>He slams his hand down on his desk in anger. A small, scared whimper escapes Skye’s throat before she can stop it, as she hunches in on herself to try and make herself as small of a target as possible in the chair.</p><p>Coulson clenches his jaw at the sight of her, and his eyes are piercing. His voice is quietly, calmly furious when he says, “No more secrets and no more lies. You have been keeping something from us, from <i>me</i>, this whole time. And it isn’t superpowers. Now so help me god, you better come clean now on why you’re here and what you want from us, because if one more lie comes out of your mouth, I will drop you off at the Raft labeled as a dangerous enhanced criminal so SHIELD can lock you in a white padded cell and do whatever the hell scientific tests they want on you.”</p><p>Her arms <i>crack</i>. Skye closes her eyes and grits her teeth against the splintering agony wracking through her bones and body. She refuses to scream. Her panic is incredibly overwhelming to the point where she can’t even think, and she’s been trying so hard to keep the quakes contained inside her that now she’s most likely broken her wrists. But hearing that threat and warning from Coulson… that if she doesn’t tell him <i>everything</i> right now, he’s going to cart her off to a SHIELD prison, never to be seen again… she feels like she’s going to pass out. She’s nauseous and in shock and paralysed with fear.</p><p>“Now, Skye, or I’m done with you,” Coulson growls. “Is Skye even your real name? I just heard your boyfriend call you <i>Daisy</i>. Or is that a fake name as well?”</p><p>She doesn’t know where to start. To be honest, she isn’t sure she can talk without throwing up. So instead, she does the only thing she can muster the energy and concentration to think of. Reaching into her bra and ignoring how her arms scream with pain, Skye pulls out her personal thumb drive and places it carefully on the desk between her and Coulson, swallowing around the lump in her throat.</p><p>Coulson swipes it up, examining it suspiciously. “What is this?”</p><p>“It’s everything I have.”</p><p>His glare is accusing. “On us?”</p><p>“On me,” she croaks. She keeps her eyes aimed downwards and trembling hands in her lap as Coulson plugs it in, the contents of the drive flashing up onto the screen. The first few files that appear are the ones she hasn’t secured in a password-protected folder: the files about her parents. He says nothing, so she continues in a shaky rasp, “It’s why I learned to crack systems, why I joined the Rising Tide… to find any details I could about who I am. Who my parents are, why I was abandoned at the orphanage, <i>what</i> I am…” Her tears spill over, hot on her cheeks and she feels like she’s drowning. “Why my crazy biological father kidnapped me when I was fourteen and activated something in my DNA to turn me into a walking natural disaster. Why he then turned me over to be tortured and experimented on by psycho scientists. Why every day since I escaped, I’ve been forced to live in fear of being captured and taken back there.”</p><p>“That’s why you need protection,” Coulson replies, his voice hushed and gaze fixed on the screen.</p><p>“Everything I’ve managed to find about my origins, after five years of constant hacking and searching… a single document about a foster system protocol for a baby girl... <i>redacted</i>,” she spits.</p><p>Her SO shakes his head. “By SHIELD.”</p><p>“SHIELD has been meddling with my life ever since I was born.” She reaches out for the keyboard, clicking on the private folder and typing in the password. More redacted documents fly up onto the screen.</p><p>“Daisy… that’s you?” Coulson asks, reading over them.</p><p>“That’s me,” she responds simply. “That’s what my father said my name was. Miles only knows it because for my first year on the streets, I went by both Skye and Daisy, before switching to Skye permanently when I realized they could be trying to track me by the name Daisy.”</p><p>“<i>Project Quake</i>,” he mutters.</p><p>“Because I can make earthquakes,” she says needlessly. “Stupid codename, right? I hate it.”</p><p>His expression morphs from a combination of curiosity and confusion to pure horror as he carries on reading. “These are the files from the research facility they had you locked up in?” </p><p>Skye knows why he’s so sickened. Those files describe months of abuse and medical torture. There are no pictures, thankfully, as Skye wiped all photos of her in the files and online. But despite the countless pages, there’s no explanation as to why Skye was a subject of interest to them, no explanation as to what she is, despite her altered DNA and powerful abilities.</p><p>“Spectre Research Group… I’ve never heard of that organization. Your father, would I have heard of him? Is he a wanted criminal?”</p><p>Skye drops her head into her hand, exhausted. “You wouldn’t have. His name is Calvin, that’s all I was ever able to get out of him, and without a last name there’s no chance at identifying him. Trust me, I’ve tried. And as far as the rest of the world is concerned, Spectre Research Group doesn't exist. From the files, I’ve managed to deduce that they bought a lot of their more advanced equipment from small untraceable companies. The facility was pretty much in rubble after I escaped - I had to set off an earthquake during a transfer from my cell to the lab - so there’s nothing else, just those redacted documents.” She flicks through the files to the very last page. Heavily redacted like a lot of the others, but there’s one detail there that has been haunting her for the last half a decade. “See that list of people who authorized the project?”</p><p>Coulson collapses into his chair, lost for words. The names are blacked out, but underneath one of them, typed in a smaller font: <i>SHIELD Senior Geneticist/Head of Spectre Non-Human Genetic Research.</i></p><p>“Oh, Skye…”</p><p>“It’s not <i>you</i> I don’t trust. It’s the people you work for,” she mumbles.</p><p>“Are you sure this is real?” he asks dubiously. She stares at him, insulted and disbelieving for a brief second, before standing and turning to leave. “Wait. No, that’s not what I meant to imply. It’s just hard for me to believe a SHIELD scientist was involved in doing all those horrible things to you.” He looks dejected. “I presume you’re still searching for answers concerning this?”</p><p>She shakes her head. “No matter what you do, I’ll never stop looking. I need to find out what I am, what my father did to me, and what those scientists wanted from me. I need to find out exactly how and why SHIELD were involved.” Skye blinks her wet eyes fiercely, trying to force the tears back, croaking out, “I just want to know who I am.”</p><p>“You might not like what you find,” Coulson replies, in a gentler voice than she imagined he would speak with considering how his vibrations undulate with rage. </p><p>“It can’t be worse than what I’ve imagined,” she whispers, crying freely. “Or what I’ve suffered through already to get to this point in my life.”</p><p>He pulls her thumbdrive out of the port and after a second of hesitation, he slips it across his desk back towards her. Her wrists are hurting so much that she can barely lift her hand to take it back. Later on tonight, she’ll probably comb through the files again herself, desperately searching for more tidbits of information as she breaks down into a million pieces and has to stitch herself back up again to face a new dawn.</p><p>“Maybe I can help,” her SO offers softly.</p><p>She sniffles. “You’re not sending me to the Raft?”</p><p>“No.”</p><p>“Are you gonna put me on the Index?” she asks miserably.</p><p>“I should. But at the moment, I don’t see the need to. Don’t make me regret that, Skye.” He halts and then asks unsurely, “Or would you prefer Daisy?”</p><p>“Skye is what I’ve gone by since I was a kid. It’s what I go by now. Maybe one day I’ll decide I want to be Daisy instead, but here on the BUS, I’m Skye. Are -” her throat closes up. “Are you gonna tell the rest of the team?”</p><p>“I think we should tell them something.” Coulson runs his eyes over her, inspecting her. She has to look awful. She’s a tearful, snotty mess with useless arms who is barely holding it together, and shies away from his every move. “How about I tell them that you’re searching for information on your parents and why you were left at St Agnes?”</p><p>“Nothing about my powers or Spectre Research Group or the SHIELD link?” she questions timidly. She’s still afraid of how May, Ward and Fitzsimmons will react to her abilities, especially now they see her as a traitor.</p><p>“No, nothing about that. At least, not yet.” He eyes her cautiously. “Skye, I need you to be honest with me. Are you at all involved with Centipede?”</p><p>“No,” she shakes her head vehemently. “They’re <i>monsters</i>. Preying and experimenting on innocent people, turning them into weapons and not caring who they hurt or kill. They’re just as bad as Spectre. Hell, for all I know, they could even be working together. I want to help you take them down.” </p><p>“Good. We’ll figure the rest out tomorrow, okay?” His smile at her is tentative and strained. “That’s enough for today. You look exhausted, get some food and then sleep.”</p><p>Coulson passes her a small black box before sidestepping around her and quietly exiting his office. Skye watches him leave and only once she’s sure he’s gone does she nervously open the box. A strange sense of resignation and loss washes over her when she sees it’s the same kind of bracelet that Coulson gave Miles, blocking him from using technology. If this is the condition for her staying on the BUS with the team… but if she can’t use tech, then how is she meant to be useful? Coulson can’t want her to use her powers… can he? Nausea cramps her stomach.</p><p>There’s a small paper note tucked into the box alongside the bracelet, written in her SO’s tidy scrawl. <i>Blocks from accessing SHIELD systems without my authorisation.</i></p><p>Agonising, blazing pain flares in her bruised and possibly fractured arms as she clicks the band into place on her non-dominant wrist. The thought crosses her mind that she should probably go and see Simmons and get her arms x-rayed, because she might need braces or even casts so they can heal properly. But then she remembers the despondent look Simmons had on her face earlier and determines that she doesn’t want to be an even bigger burden on the team than she already is.</p><p>Skye cries bitter salty tears in complete silence as she traipses back to her bunk, feeling more depressed than she has in a while as it dawns on her that the band around her wrist is a shackle. Better this kind of shackle than the Index and a SHIELD prison cell, though.</p>
<hr/><p>Three hours of sleep, restless because of the terrible pain in her wrists and permeated by night terrors, is all Skye is able to get before her alarm goes off at 4:45am, so she can get up for tai chi at 5am with May. It appears as if she’s been releasing minor quakes in her sleep due to those nightmares, as a lot of her belongings have been knocked askew in her bunk. She hopes the tremors were mild enough that she can blame them on turbulence. Considering they’re still flying, though, and she wasn’t woken up, she assumes the shaking was minor.</p><p>Vaulting out of bed, the first thing that happens is that she almost passes out. There is absolutely no way she hasn’t sustained some damage to both of her arms’ radius and ulna. The throbbing in them both is so immense and blinding that she wants to be sick. She rummages with her foot in her box from her van until she finds a stolen pill bottle from last year, and forces herself to swallow down enough pills of oxycodone to achieve a pretty hefty but still safe dosage.</p><p>Skye is fully aware that she’s being ridiculous and should just go to Simmons to get treated, but she’s terrified of having to explain why her arms are in this state, and terrified of her - and Coulson’s - reaction. It’s crazy early in the morning anyway, and Simmons won’t be awake until at least 7am. Plus, she can’t skip out on training with May. May told her when they first started training together that she wouldn’t go easy on Skye even if she was banged up, because all field agents have rough days and they still have to continue on their missions regardless of how ill they’re feeling.</p><p>She changes into work-out gear as quickly as she can with her arms in the state they’re in, taking five minutes alone to wrestle a long-sleeve t-shirt on; she’s in tears by the time she’s dressed herself, but she just stubbornly wipes them away, grits her teeth through the pain and finishes getting ready. She hopes May doesn’t pay much attention to how she looks when she turns up, because her hair is only half-brushed and pulled up into a terribly messy bun, and her face is white, emphasising the deep, dark black circles around her eyes.</p><p>She’s half a minute late when she stumbles into the lounge, where May is already set up on her yoga mat in their tai chi routine’s starting position. “Sorry I’m late,” Skye mumbles. And then suddenly, she’s struck with uncertainty when she sees May’s closed eyes and blank expression. Maybe May hates her from what happened yesterday, and thinks she’s a dirty traitor, and doesn’t want her here at all. Maybe May doesn’t want to train her anymore. “Can - can I, um, can I still join you?” she asks anxiously, tripping over her words.</p><p>May doesn’t reply, but moves into second position. Skye takes that as a yes and hurries to set up and copy her. Her arms ache and throb with every movement, knocking her off balance and blurring her vision, but the oxycodone is taking the edge off the biting pain. She manages to struggle through their entire twenty minute routine without mistakes, although she’s sluggish when she has to twist her wrists or stretch.</p><p>When she finishes their last movement, Skye opens her bleary eyes to find May standing directly in front of her with an intense, scrutinising frown. Knowing that the specialist is just as perceptive as Coulson, if not more so, she squashes down her pain and forces herself to crack a wary smile. For a fleeting second, May’s eyes flicker down to the band on her left wrist knowingly. Yesterday it felt like a shackle - now it feels like a brand, labelling her as untrustworthy and a liability.</p><p>“Sparring next,” May says after another couple of seconds of appraising her. “Cargo hold, two minutes. Get a drink before you meet me there.” She disappears into the cockpit, most likely to check over their course.</p><p>Frustration and helplessness claw at Skye’s heart as she ends up forgoing a drink because she can’t curl her fingers around her water bottle without getting shooting pains from her palm up to her shoulder. There’s no way she’s going to be able to spar with May. If the specialist so much as touches one of her arms, Skye reckons she might pass out. But she has to push through it, and try, because there are no excuses.</p><p>“I hurt my arms yesterday,” she admits quietly to May, once they’re standing opposite each other, feet planted and ready to start. It’s her responsibility to make her instructor aware of anything that might hinder her, she recounds the specialist informing her during one of their prior sessions.</p><p>Skye wilts at the tightening of May’s lips and the woman’s sharp response of, “You need to learn how to fight even after you’ve been injured in the field.” Either she doesn’t believe her or doesn’t care. She never would have thought May would be the type of person to hold a grudge, but she clearly has a bone to pick with Skye.</p><p>One block with her right arm is all it takes to send Skye sprawling to the floor, curling up around her arms and choking on sobs of agony. Everything goes fuzzy and dark around the edges. The pain is so intense that the rest of her body feels totally numb, while her wrists are set ablaze.</p><p>“Get up!” May orders.</p><p>But Skye just curls up tighter into her protective ball, attempting to shield her damaged wrists. Is the whole plane shaking around her, or is it just her? Her powers feel entirely out of reach right now, which either means the pain has locked them down or they’re completely out of control. When May approaches her, her footsteps like booms of thunder in Skye’s ears, she cringes away, hiccuping on whimpers of sorrow and fright.</p><p>May’s voice is even more cutting than before, edged with alarm, as she commands, “Skye, show me your arms.”</p><p>She shakes her head frantically.</p><p>“I can’t help you if you don’t show me what’s wrong.”</p><p>“<i>No</i>,” she groans.</p><p>Obviously running out of patience for her, May kicks her legs out so they’re straight, rather than tucked into her body, and rolls her over onto her back, pinning her there with her elbow on Skye’s sternum. If this were any other training session and her arms weren’t in the state they were in, she would lash out and fight to free herself, because being immobilized like this dredges up unpleasant memories of when she was restrained to operating tables in the Spectre Research Group’s facility.</p><p>As she can barely move her arms, though, all Skye can do is desperately twist her torso and kick out with her legs, hoping it will do something. “Let go of me!” she shouts. She could quake May off her, but that would just cause her more pain. “<i>GET OFF!</i>”</p><p>“Calm down, stop struggling,” May says, low and soothing. She brushes her fingertips over Skye’s forehead in a tender movement and maybe it’s the shock that the specialist would be so gentle and comforting with her, because she immediately stops fighting. Her chest stutters with wheezing, shallow gasps as she stares at her trainer distrustfully. She doesn’t want May touching her wrists. “I need to take a look at your arms to see what we’re dealing with,” she explains, once Skye is calmer and listening to her. “But I can’t do that until you’re still.”</p><p>“Please don’t hurt me,” she breathes.</p><p>She’s made that plea god knows how many times in her life and always been ignored. May has never raised a hand to strike her before, but she doesn’t know the specialist all that well, so who is Skye to know whether or not May will hit her? She never would have expected Coulson to shout and intimidate her, but he did yesterday. Angering authority figures always has always ended in them being violent towards her, from her experience.</p><p>May visually startles at her desperate request, and for a feelting second, her expression crumples with anguish. But then her determination returns. “I’m not going to hurt you deliberately,” she assures her firmly. “I’m going to cut your sleeves with a penknife and I will have to grasp your elbows to do that, which might hurt, but I’m not trying to cause you pain. I just want to help.”</p><p>There it is again, the H word. Coulson has used it and now May is using it as well. Skye has never in her entire life met somebody who is willing to help her without wanting something from her in return. There’s no use fighting May on this, though, because she knows that she’ll lose. She’s too dizzy to think of a single argument, and can’t use her powers to defend herself. Slumping on the floor, she cranes her neck back so she’s looking away, and just… focuses on breathing, forcing heavy oxygen into her lungs to ease the tightness caused by distress and anxiety.</p><p>Remaining completely still as May slices through the seams of her sleeves and peels them back, Skye closes her eyes when she hears the woman’s barely audible gasp of horror. She flushes with shame; for May to be astonished like that, her arms must be in even worse shape than she thought. When the specialist very slowly and carefully picks up her right arm, running her thumb lightly over the violent blood bruises, a pained whine breaks the weighted blanket of silence that’s draped over them both. It takes a second before Skye recognises it as a sound that’s crept out of her own throat.</p><p>May’s thumb creeps higher up her forearm, brushing over the thin, faded, white scars running in parallel lines. She obviously recognises what they are. Skye has never been more ashamed to have that part of her past exposed to somebody. Quickly, though, the specialist re-focuses on the more recent damage, pressing her fingertips delicately onto Skye’s skin.</p><p>Highly unusual for her, there’s a faint waver in May’s voice as she informs her, “I’m getting Coulson and Simmons.”</p><p>“No, please don’t,” she protests, but even to her ears she sounds feeble and exhausted.</p><p>“Skye, it looks like you’ve fractured both of your wrists. You need medical attention from Simmons immediately and Coulson needs to know as your SO. There’s no negotiating here.”</p><p>She’s backed into a corner. Trapped again. Panic floods over her, setting every nerve ending in her body on fire as her adrenalin levels surge. The vibrations rattling her bones increase to a crescendo, making her tremble all over, but now she feels as if that in all of her hysteria, she can’t release them. Her muscles seize, to the point where she’s fighting to breathe and black spots are appearing in her vision. Fight or flight kicks in. May’s hold on her is weak enough now that a good couple of seconds of thrashing frees her, and then Skye is running.</p><p>She knows as she’s doing it that it’s a stupid thing to do. May could easily catch her; the only reason she isn’t is because she doesn’t want to harm her. She’s in so much pain that she’s practically staggering all over the place, scrambling up the steps and slamming into the walls with cries of agony as she attempts to rush back to her bunk to lock herself in.</p><p>Skye reaches the living quarters and just about thinks she’s made it when she trips. Her head slams into the edge of the minibar.</p><p>Everything goes black.</p>
<hr/><p>Feeling like she’s floating on a cloud, Skye blinks blearily up at the sloped ceiling of her bunk when she drags herself back to full consciousness. She’s stiff all over, but miraculously, she’s in barely any pain except from the pounding in her skull, caused by a terrible headache. It takes a minute for her powers to buzz back to the surface, and then she’s instantly aware of May’s calm vibrations beside her. The specialist has squeezed herself onto a stool in the corner of the room, within arms length.</p><p>“Don’t move,” May advises her quietly, settling a steady hand on her shoulder. “You hit your head pretty badly. Simmons said you don’t have a concussion, fortunately, but you’ll probably still feel a little woozy and nauseous.”</p><p>Skye manages a small nod, swallowing. She’s so utterly mortified at how she reacted to May finding out about her arms that she can’t even find the courage to look over at her, so instead she glances down at her injured wrists. They’ve been encased in secure, thick braces that wrap around her thumbs, made of rigid material and velcro with padding underneath. With her powers in play, the braces feel incredibly strange, almost as if they’re absorbing the vibrations from her skin while immobilizing her arms.</p><p>May explains, seeing her bemusement, “Simmons originally wanted to properly cast them, but then realized you need to be able to take the braces off to apply bruise cream.”</p><p>“So my arms are broken,” she rasps in defeat.</p><p>The specialist’s expression turns grave, her lips tightening. “I’m certain Simmons will tell you more later, but from what I understand, you have approximately fourteen hairline microfractures in your left forearm, the majority being in your radius, and seventeen hairline microfractures in your right forearm.”</p><p>Skye’s blood runs cold. It’s horrifying information to hear, especially as had no idea it was that serious. “Oh.” A beat of frigid silence passes. “How come I’m not in the lab?” If Simmons knows, she’s surprised she hasn’t woken up on a medical cot in the corner of Fitzsimmons’ lab that functions as a miniature field infirmary. </p><p>“Coulson said you have a severe medical phobia. He seemed to think you would have another panic attack if you woke up in the lab with monitors all around you and an IV.” May narrows her eyes at her when Skye exhales shakily, wondering whether that means Simmons has already done all of her tests and has discovered her altered DNA. “He also said you would react badly if you found out that Simmons took your blood while unconscious, so you have that to look forward to later.”</p><p>“Great,” she mutters under her breath sarcastically. Simmons will turn her into a pin cushion and then she’ll have to spend hours deleting the blood test results from SHIELD’s systems to ensure her identity and abilities remain secret.</p><p>May shifts from her stool to perching carefully on the very edge of her bed. Her gaze is penetrating as it flickers over her arms and then up to make strong eye contact. Skye’s face prickles; she has to resist the urge to flinch back and look away. “Want to explain how you got these injuries?” her mentor asks cooly.</p><p>Skye says nothing.</p><p>She really isn’t sure how May would react to hearing that she technically did this to herself. And she doesn’t know how to explain that without revealing her powers, which she doesn’t have plans to do anytime soon. And she especially doesn’t want to explain how bruising up her wrists is <i>normal</i>, especially now that the woman’s seen her scars from self-harming in the past.</p><p>There’s a slight troubled falter in May’s voice as she continues, “Is the reason you don’t want to tell me because you’re trying to protect somebody? The person who did this to you?” Skye once again doesn’t respond. She’s protecting herself, after all. “Skye, is it someone on the BUS? You have to know that SHIELD actively condemns abuse of any form between agents, or between SOs and their trainees -”</p><p>“Coulson didn’t do this to me,” Skye snaps, catching on to what she’s implying.</p><p>“You have to see how this looks to Simmons and I, Skye. You did not have broken arms before you went into Coulson’s office yesterday. Here you are today with dozens of fractures and you’re refusing to admit how they were caused.”</p><p>“It. Wasn’t. Coulson,” she repeats forcefully. May doesn’t let up with her sternly concerned and taking-no-bull expression. This interrogation is not going to finish until Skye gives her <i>something</i>, and May will know if she lies… so Skye will have to tell the truth, but <i>twisted</i> a little. “Coulson knows who did this to me. We had a good, long talk about it, and he saw the bruises. He didn’t know about the fractures - I didn’t know about them either. He tried to make me see Simmons but I was too stubborn and told him I wouldn’t go. I manipulated him into believing it was fine by telling him it wasn’t that bad and I could handle it. It’s <i>my</i> fault, okay?”</p><p>“He knows who did this to you,” May repeats, strained with anger. “Has he dealt with whoever it was? Reported the abuse, planned to turn the perpentrator over for disciplinary action?”</p><p>“It wasn’t a SHIELD agent.” And she’s not lying, because she’s not a SHIELD agent. She’s a consultant.</p><p>Something akin to dawning understanding glints in May’s eyes. “Did this happen yesterday?”</p><p>That’s a direct question with a yes or no answer, and anything less or more would be avoiding it. Hesitating, Skye finally settles on replying, “Yes.”</p><p>“I see,” is May’s clipped response.</p><p>After that, the specialist takes her leave with a stony look on her face that is even more scary than a furious one. Whether she’s going to collect Simmons to give her another check-up or heading to Coulson’s office to try and needle more information out of him, Skye isn’t certain, but she’s just relieved that she’s no longer the one being grilled. Scooting upwards so she’s sitting up, leaning against the wall, she fumbles for her phone, which is set atop the small bedside cabinet. The stupid brace on her arm gets in the way and makes it difficult for her to hold her phone, but at least they give her a decent amount of autonomy.</p><p>Just as she’s about to open her phone to scroll through social media to review what’s been going on in the wider world, Skye remembers the band that should be around her wrist. It’s been moved down to her ankle. She stops, contemplating. She hasn’t experienced what it can do yet. She isn’t all that sure how it works, either. Does it need to be in contact with her skin? Does it work using proximity detectors that can tell when she’s using tech? Given that Coulson would have been the person to remove and relocate the bracelet, it will clearly work just as well on her ankle as it was meant to on her wrist.</p><p>Shifting into a cross-legged position so her ankle is closer, Skye prods at it warily. Anxiety cramps her stomach and squeezes her heart as she wonders whether or not it works as an electric shock bracelet. If it does, then it’s a barbaric deterrent. Despite how enraged Coulson was last night, he still cares about her, and she can’t ever imagine him forcing her to wear something that would hurt her.</p><p>She senses Coulson approaching via his vibrations skittering through the floor before she sees him, so she isn’t at all shocked when he knocks once on her bunk door and then slides it open without waiting for a response. Skye doesn’t glance up, focusing on pushing one of her fingers clumsily under the band, to see how much give it has. Part of the reason she’s reluctant to look at him is because she’s afraid of what she’s going to see: rage, sympathy, worry, frustration? Coulson wears his heart on his sleeve most of the time, and right now she doesn’t think she wants to know what he’s feeling towards or about her.</p><p>“You trying to figure out if you can pry it off?” he asks quietly after a minute. “You could probably use your powers to remove it, no problem. But your remaining here on the BUS is conditional upon you wearing it.”</p><p>She shrugs and gives up on swivelling it around her ankle. “Trying to work out whether it’s going to shock me, actually.”</p><p>“You think I’d tag you with something that could <i>electrocute you?</i>” He sounds appalled. “Did I really come across as that angry yesterday?”</p><p>She shrugs again, scared to admit that when he slammed his hand down on his desk, it reminded her too much of abusive foster fathers’ fists pummelling and beating her vulnerable child body. And honestly, she’s terrified that he’s going to work out that she broke her wrists while <i>in</i> his office after he issued that threat to send her to the Raft, because he didn’t notice and she said nothing.</p><p>“No,” she finally says, when Coulson looks heartbroken. “I don’t think you’d do that, A.C., I know you wouldn’t. Just…” she gestures jerkily towards herself, “Not really in the best headspace right now, I’ve got a pounding headache, and my brain’s a little fuzzy from whatever painkillers Simmons has got me on.”</p><p>He catches on to what she’s not saying, though. “So I was that angry.” Skye just picks at a stray thread hanging off her t-shirt, keeping her mouth shut. Heaving a sigh, Coulson watches her for cues as he steps into her bunk and sinks down onto the stool in the corner. “Why did Agent May just come to my office demanding we turn the plane around to fly back to Hong Kong so we can track down Miles and she can break all four of his limbs?” </p><p>Her jaw partially drops but then she groans and tries to hide her embarrassed face with her right arm. Of course May would come to that conclusion, given all that she said. “Because she was asking me questions about who hurt my arms and I couldn’t lie to her but I couldn’t tell her the whole truth either, so I told her that you already knew who had done it and they weren’t a SHIELD agent,” Skye sighs. “Then she asked if it happened yesterday and I couldn’t find wiggle room within that question so I had to answer yes, so I think she must be under the impression that Miles is - <i>was</i> - my manipulative, abusive boyfriend. And now she pities me.”</p><p>Coulson tilts head. “It wasn’t Miles.”</p><p>“No. He’s a manipulative asshole, for sure, but he wasn’t abusive - and he wasn’t my boyfriend, I hate that you all keep calling him that. He was just a really good, close friend who it turns out isn’t such a good person,” she scowls down at her legs.</p><p>A beat, and then Coulson states dejectedly, “It was me, wasn’t it?”</p><p>She startles. “What? Why would you say that? You know it’s my own fault. I can’t control my powers when I get emotional and then I have to internalize them, which causes the bruising - or in this case, dozens of microfractures.” Frowning down at her arms, she muses, “I wonder if I’ve ever fractured them before and not noticed because I thought I was in pain because of the bruises.”</p><p>“Skye, you don’t have to shield me from the truth just because you know it will hurt,” her SO says, his voice deep and sad. “The only reason you were ‘emotional’ is because I was so outwardly furious that I terrified you. For god’s sake, I threatened to send you to the Raft and have you locked up so SHIELD scientists could do tests on you. I hit my desk, lost my temper. Knowing what I do now, having seen your private files - I must have triggered you so badly. And I suspected you had traumas in regards to medical testing and research, but I still dug into them because I knew it would scare you. I <i>wanted</i> to scare you. That’s utterly unforgiveable of me, as your SO but especially as your fa- friend and ally.” He lowers his eyes, wracked with guilt as he apologises, voice cracking, “It was deplorable behaviour, and I’m so sorry. I know nothing I could say would make up for the pain I’ve caused you, but I just hope you know I regret it. I <i>promise</i> you, I will never treat you like that again.”</p><p>“It’s okay,” she tries, but he glares at her so she exhales slowly and admits, “It’s not okay, but you and I, we’re okay. I forgive you. You were angry when you did and said that stuff, understandably so considering the lies and secrets and broken trust. People don’t often think rationally when they’re angry, and they do and say stupid things. Hell, when I’m angry I can accidentally topple buildings! I’ve exploded too many glasses to count with my powers during past arguments. So keep your Captain America mugs in your cabinet, okay?” That makes him crack a smile. “We… we’ve just gotta accept that it all happened and we both have regrets, and then agree to work on our communication skills so it doesn’t happen again.”</p><p>“That sounds good,” Coulson says warmly, resting his hand on her shoulder and squeezing it lightly. “We can work out some boundaries to put in place, maybe figure out a codeword for when we need to cool it and give each other space, or talk things out. I’m presuming this means you want to me stay on as your SO?”</p><p>“What? Yeah, of course I do. I think you’d struggle to find somebody else willing to take me,” she jokes.</p><p>He hums thoughtfully “You’d be surprised. I know of at least two agents that have shown interest in your progress so far. Ward -”</p><p>“No way, not Ward,” Skye cuts him off, her voice sharp. Coulson blinks at her, bemused. “No offence, but Ward gives me the creeps. I know he’s like, this seasoned agent with a ton of experience in the field and expert knowledge of SHIELD mission protocols, but he was getting way too worked up and assertive when he was training me. Not just tough - <i>aggressive</i>. Maybe his SO was like that with him when he was a junior agent and sure, he turned into a great specialist, but he’s way too intense for me. He’s scarier than May sometimes.”</p><p>“Well, May is the other agent.”</p><p>Skye frowns down at her hands, mulling that over. “May would probably make an amazing SO,” she allows. “And at least I know already that her training methods are strict, but not overly pushy. I thought she hated me at first, you know. I know she doesn’t now. While she has warmed up to me a bit, I don’t feel comfortable enough to tell her about my powers. I will soon, but not yet. And it’s probably better for me to have an SO who knows.” She grasps and shakes his arm as well as she can with her wrist in the brace. “Sorry, A.C., you’re stuck with me.”</p><p>“However will I cope,” he deadpans, before looking down at where she’s holding his arm in intrigue. “What’s that?”</p><p>Skye instantly releases her grip, alarmed. “What’s what?”</p><p>“As soon as you touched me I could hear this… <i>buzzing</i>. And it felt like I was tingling all over.”</p><p>Focusing in on herself, she internally groans when she realises that she’s been subconsciously reflecting all of the molecular vibrations she would usually absorb from everything around her, in an effort to keep the vibrations directed away from her injured arms. Holding onto Coulson must have somehow projected them onto him.</p><p>“Sorry,” she says sheepishly. “That’s me. I’m bouncing back all of the normal vibrations I would usually mop up from the surroundings.”</p><p>The awe and astonishment on his face makes her double-take. “Is that what it feels like for you all the time? Like a thousand bees are under your skin?”</p><p>She shrugs and nods. “Yeah. It’s usually magnified by ten for me, though, because I’ve become much more vibration-sensitive in the past five years. It’s got to the point where I can pin-point earthquakes and detect them before they happen.” She pauses and then adds, as her senses pick up somebody approaching, “It’s how I can tell that Simmons is coming right now. I can feel the vibrations of her footsteps and can tell its her by her gait. Plus, you all have unique vibrational frequencies I’ve learned to associate with you.”</p><p>“I’ll leave you in <i>Doctor</i> Simmons’ capable hands, then,” Coulson comments, standing and brushing himself down.</p><p>“Why do you say <i>Doctor</i> like it’s a bad thing?” she asks suspiciously. Skye’s eyes widen. “Oh no, Simmons is gonna be one of those super stern doctors who straps my butt to the bed if I do something she doesn’t like, isn’t she?”</p><p>“It all comes from love,” he reassures her, stroking her hair in a fond gesture as he stands and inches over to the bunk door. “Remember that, even when she drives you crazy.” When he slides the door open, Simmons pops into view, clipboard in hand but without her white lab-coat or any gloves. The two of them exchange smiles, although Simmons’ is slightly strained. “Skye’s all yours.”</p><p>“Wonderful,” the biochemist chirps with forced cheer. “Just in time for me to apply more bruise cream.”</p><p>Skye winces and prepares herself to be lectured for being irresponsible and not coming to the lab for treatment immediately after being hurt. Despite her apprehension of letting Simmons doctor her, though, her heart is warm.</p><p>“Well then,” Simmons starts, once they’re alone. “I guess I should begin by telling you that you’re benched for at least the next two weeks. No field excursions, and limited computer time to ensure your forearms are rested enough to heal. I hope you feel comfortable in the lab, because you’re going to be spending a <i>lot</i> of time in there with Fitz and I.”</p><p>Skye grimaces, but can’t help but feel relieved.</p><p>And strangely happy.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Next update: 11th Oct</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thank you all once again for your support and patience! Hope you enjoy this chapter x</p>
<p>Trigger warnings in the tags as always, but an additional trigger warning for this chapter: There are descriptions and discussion of past self-harm, suicidal thoughts and ideation, and Skye has a panic attack and a dissociative episode near the end.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Being benched from going out into the field and stuck in the lab with Fitzsimmons isn’t nearly as boring as Skye thought it might be. The two scientists are actually pretty fun to hang around with, which she honestly didn’t expect.</p>
<p>They forgive her for lying to them almost instantly, although Skye suspects that might be because May has mentioned to them that she thinks Miles manipulated and abused her, causing her injuries; they’re kind and accomodating, wanting to make her feel welcome in their workspaces, and being super careful not to move too quickly or touch her without warning. They even let her use the lab computers for some of the coding projects that Coulson sets her - none of them to do with SHIELD servers or programs, of course.</p>
<p>The amount of British breakfast tea they make her is frankly <i>amazing</i>. But the way Fitz brews it strong and Simmons adds honey instead of sugar, and they serve it to her with a side of biscuits… Skye could get used to this kind of pampering.</p>
<p>Over the next week, her arms heal at a disturbingly rapid rate. Since her ‘activation’, this has been her new normal; bruises fading in half the time, cuts scabbing over and forming scars so quickly that she rarely needs stitches unless the wound is too big. Skye can tell that Simmons is fascinated and bewildered by it, but the doctor never bothers her more than for what she needs to make sure she’s healthy. She’s not as stern a doctor as Coulson implied her to be. She’s attentive and yes, does fuss over Skye a little, but it’s the good kind of fussing that makes her feel cared for. Because Simmons <i>wants</i> to look after her, which she doesn’t quite know how to feel about, given that she’s rarely had that.</p>
<p>Fitz is the same - while he isn’t involved in Skye’s medical treatment at all, he keeps her company, and slips her British snacks from his own secret stash, like Jaffa cakes and Twiglets and his mum’s homemade Scottish shortbread. Simmons tells her that it means Fitz likes her; he doesn’t share his snacks with just <i>anybody</i>. Skye knows that he had a bit of a crush on her when she first moved onto the BUS, so wonders if it’s that, but Simmons reassures her that the engineer sees her as his little sister now. And to be fair, that is how it starts to come across.</p>
<p>When she’s antsy and feeling restricted by the band on her ankle keeping her out of SHIELD’s systems, Fitz allows her to help program the processing units of the new Night Night Guns he and Simmons have invented. It’s difficult and time-consuming work, but he appreciates her coding skills and is very open to hearing her suggestions, getting excited when they make breakthroughs. As an engineering genius, he also understands a lot more computer science lingo than anybody else on the team, and is happy to chat with her about the algorithms she’s created in the past and is improving to use during their missions. It does actually feel like he’s her brother.</p>
<p>Meetings with Coulson become regular, occurring every evening after dinner. They talk, setting boundaries and discussing Skye’s triggers so they can avoid them. Coulson agrees to never raise his voice at her or stand over her to intimidate her again. She agrees not to deliberately withhold information that could be pertinent to future investigations. They come up with a codeword, ‘Lighthouse’, that when said will cease whatever conversation or argument they’re in, with or without the team present, so they can turn it into a safe space and discuss calmly what’s upset them (mostly her). Sometimes, they just sit and enjoy each other’s company, with him completing paperwork and her reading SHIELD field protocol manuals.</p>
<p>Coulson’s presence is very calming, supportive, and grounding… everything she’s always imagined a father to be. He’s completely the opposite of her biological father, which is somewhat of a relief. Like Fitz, he’s happy to listen to Skye rambling about coding and algorithms, and he gets this little smile on his face whenever she’s talking as if he’s proud of her.</p>
<p>After her hairline microfractures have half-healed, after five days or so, Simmons gives her the okay to practice tai chi with May again, but she’s still forbidden to partake in any kind of sparring or firearms training. Tai chi aids immensely with her mounting anxiety, preventing her from going stir-crazy. May adjusts their routine to exclude any movements or positions that might hurt her arms and incorporates a lot more meditative segments.</p>
<p>May doesn’t know it, but it seriously helps Skye get better control of her powers, which have been dialed up to the max since she started spending four-fifths of her day in the lab. There are so many reflective surfaces in there, with loads of electrical equipment, that it’s impossible to escape the vibrations. It’s not all that clear whether or not she forgives Skye yet, but she reckons they’re on the way to it, and she just has to earn May’s trust back.</p>
<p>She can’t wait until they start sparring again. May is easily the best sparring partner she’s ever had, because she genuinely learns new fighting skills whenever she steps onto the mat to go up against the specialist. Although it’s rather obvious that May holds back whenever they fight, Skye still gets pushed, and therefore improves. While she can’t spar herself, she tries to sneak onto the balcony or peer out of the lab windows to watch May and Ward spar whenever she can, making notes on moves she sees her trainer use that are new to her, but she’d like to learn.</p>
<p>Ward is… <i>Ward</i>. Hard-headed, passive-aggressive, bitter. Holding a grudge. She apologizes to him and he walks off without acknowledging it at all. He glowers at Skye from across the dining table and deliberately bumps into her shoulder when they pass each other in the BUS, not appearing to care if he aggravates her injuries or not. May and Coulson catch him doing it one time and follow after him to no doubt lay into him about being more considerate. He stops bumping her at that point, but switches between continuing with his poisonous glares and pretending she doesn’t exist. Skye hates the mind games he’s playing with her. It makes her paranoid and jittery, to the point where she becomes nervous if they have to stand in the same room.</p>
<p>She admits this to Simmons after her heart rate rises to a concerning 170 beats per minute during one of her check-ups, when Ward is loitering in the cargo bay, casting scowls her way every couple of minutes. Fitz passionately tells her that he’s being a dolt and she shouldn’t worry herself silly over it, because he just needs to get his head out of his ass. Later that day, she hears Simmons muttering under her breath about how ridiculous Ward is being with his ‘immature, disgruntled, jealousy-fueled victim-blaming’. Disliking the conflict that’s being created between the team members because of her, Skye decides its better to actively avoid Ward from now on to prevent more awkwardness.</p>
<p>When their next mission assignment arrives to investigate a weirdly floating dead body at a campsite, Coulson agrees that she can work it with them as long as she stays on the BUS at all times. She’s honestly so pleased to have something to do that she doesn’t mind that much. Fitz wears a pair of specs with a mini camera built in, some spyware he’s been working on improving, so she can see what’s going on, and she’s given a commlink connected to the rest of team’s so she can listen in. The electrostatic anomalies look like wacky special effects up on the lab screen, but Simmons assures her that they’re real.</p>
<p>The investigation massively ramps up once a second electrostatic event is detected after Simmons reveals that Cross, the victim, has been electrocuted with over two thousand megajoules of electricity. Skye quickly tracks the event to a farmhouse and remains on comms as Coulson, May, and Ward go to check it out.</p>
<p>At this point, Skye is convinced that it’s an electrokinetic on a rampage. She sneaks out of the lab while Fitzsimmons are busy and fumbles frustratedly with her comm unit, hating how her hands are still constricted by the arm braces.</p>
<p>Finally, she’s able to open up a private channel with Coulson. “Sir, there’s a possibility that these electrostatic events are being caused by an electrokinetic of some kind. Did you check on the Index if there’s anybody with electricity powers?”</p>
<p>“I did check, and there isn’t, but there’s always a chance this is somebody we haven’t encountered before,” he replies.</p>
<p>She hesitates, bites her lip, and then says carefully, “If this is a powered individual, I might be more useful in the field with you than sitting on my ass doing research.”</p>
<p>After all, who better to defend the team from somebody with powers than - well, somebody with powers?</p>
<p>His response is stern, but not unkind. “Not with your arms still healing. Keep working with Fitzsimmons on Cross.”</p>
<p>They’re too late to reach the farmhouse and another man, Whalen, dies. Some swift searches on her end, though, reveal that the two men were both on a volunteer fire truck sent to New York in the aftermath of the Chitauri invasion.</p>
<p>All the logic points towards a Chitauri weapon being stolen and somebody with a grudge against those special people on the fire truck wanting to kill them. And it turns out it is a weapon, but there’s no grudge, and no killer.</p>
<p>Never in her life would Skye have thought the weapon would be a deadly alien virus.</p>
<p>And when it turns out Simmons is infected, something inside of her shatters.</p>
<p><i>Not Simmons</i>, she pleads. <i>Please, not Simmons.</i></p>
<p>But denial can only get her so far. After the biochemist is locked into the lab under quarantine, Skye paces back and forth in the cargo bay like a distressed tigress, feeling completely helpless. This isn’t something she can hack or quake away. When Coulson grimly informs them that Simmons likely has only two hours to find a cure, she nearly has a breakdown. Simmons has only been in her life for a month or so, yes, but they’ve become close, and Skye sees her like a sister. She’s can’t imagine losing her.</p>
<p>As the number of antiserum failures increases, Fitz enters the lab with the Chitauri helmet in his grasp despite the risk of infection, because he and Simmons are a team and they’re more likely to develop a functional antiserum by working together. Simmons gets sicker and sicker, and all Skye can do is watch. She tries to stay optimistic for them, but something dark buried deep inside of her has been drawn out, and the only thing she can do to help them is keep her tremors of anguish contained inside of her so she doesn’t wreck the lab.</p>
<p>Her healing arms ache and twinge in pain but she doesn’t care. All that matters are Fitz and Simmons. She sobs silently as the two amazing people she’s come to view as siblings test a sample of the cure they’ve made on a virus-infected lab rat, but the animal dies. Seeing Skye so distraught only makes Fitzsimmons more agitated.</p>
<p>“Come on,” May says quietly, tugging gently on her arm. “Let’s give them some space.”</p>
<p>May draws her away gently from the lab and up into the lounger area, where she pushes her onto one of the couches before sitting beside her. To Skye’s shock, the specialist wraps her arms around her in a hug. Once she has her face buried in May’s shoulder, that dark thing tightening her chest releases, and she cries and cries and cries.</p>
<p>She doesn’t realize Ward is equally as upset as her until he lashes out with a bellow of anger, throwing his fist into the glass window of the briefing room with so much force that it cracks. Skye holts in May’s arm, a flicker of fear lancing through her. The specialist’s arms grasp her firmly, grounding her in the present and reassuring her that she’s safe.</p>
<p>“Ward,” May snaps in reprimand. “Punching walls isn’t going to achieve anything. It’s only going to result in you hurting yourself.”</p>
<p>Ward cradles his bruised hand limply against his chest and growls, “This is <i>useless!</i> There has to be something we can do to help them!”</p>
<p>“There isn’t, and you know that,” May answers, a waver of disconcertment in her usually calm voice.</p>
<p>“I wanted it to be a person, some superpowered psychopath ... someone I could hurt, someone I could... punish,” he snarls, pacing. That makes Skye’s heart race, because it sounds like Ward has something against people with abilities. She knows in her head, though, that he’s just angry at the fact he can’t help. “But a virus!? Something I can’t even see, let alone understand!? They don’t deserve this, they’re <i>kids</i> and they’re gonna die!”</p>
<p>The entire BUS shudders. Skye stills and closes her eyes against May’s jacket, guilt slashing through her like a knife twisting in her stomach. She really didn’t mean for that quake to escape out of her. The way Ward threw out that comment about Fitzsimmons dying startled her; she hasn’t quite fully accepted it as a possibility yet. Her quake reverberates through the floor and into the fuselage, making everything tremble for a good couple of seconds.</p>
<p>“Turbulence?” Ward questions in a shaken rasp.</p>
<p>“I’ll check,” May replies, and Skye cringes at the uncertainty she says it with, as if she already knows that it’s not a change in air pressure or wind current but isn’t sure what it is. “We don’t want any of the lab equipment broken because of it.”</p>
<p>May edges her way out of Skye’s embrace to head towards the cockpit; she immediately brings her knees up onto the couch and hugs them tightly to her chest, hair obscuring her tear-stained face and shielding her from Ward. Being around the enraged specialist in such a vulnerable state unsettles her, and she’s anxious to check in on Fitzsimmons; she’s wondering whether she could sneak away when Coulson approaches, his expression exhausted and despairing.</p>
<p>For a terrifying second, Skye thinks that there’s a chance the two scientists might be gone - dead without her even realizing it - but a quick search for their unique vibrations with her powers tells her they’re still alive in the lab, to her relief.</p>
<p>“Ward, Agent Blake keeps calling me,” Coulson says tiredly, holding out his phone to Ward. “Please can you speak to him? I don’t have the energy nor the patience to deal with him right now.”</p>
<p>The specialist snatches it from his hand and storms way into the briefing room. Skye peeks up at her SO warily out of the corner of her eye as he collapses down onto the couch next to her, but with a foot of distance between them. His eyes are fixed straight ahead, slightly glazed over and filled with a sense of hopelessness that she’s never seen Coulson exhibit before.</p>
<p>He undoubtedly felt the plane quaking earlier, and although he’s not commented about it yet, she still feels the need to apologize. “I’m sorry I shook the plane,” she whispers. “I didn’t hurt anyone or break anything, did I?”</p>
<p>“No,” he assures her quietly. “You made some test tubes rattle, but that’s it. I don’t blame you for not having faultless control over your powers at the moment. I don’t think anybody would. This is a stressful time for everyone.”</p>
<p>She can’t take the space between them anymore. Sliding along the couch, Skye brings her legs up onto the cushions so she can curl up to Coulson’s warm side, resting her head on his arm. His vibrations measure transient surprise before he relaxes and draws her closer.</p>
<p>“I wish this was something I could just quake away,” she trembles. “I feel so helpless.”</p>
<p>“I know, I feel the same,” Coulson sighs.</p>
<p>She hides her face behind his shoulder. “I haven’t felt this helpless since Spectre.” Shuddering, she gathers as much courage as she can muster and then divulges timorously, “There were other people locked up there, being experimented on by them, and I had to watch them all die. There was nothing I could do. And when the scientists brought new people in, I wanted so much to be able to help them and get them out of there, because I knew they were going to be killed. But I couldn’t do <i>anything</i>.” She pauses, letting a heavy silence settle, before she chokes out, “I’m sorry, I’m so selfish, I shouldn’t be making this about me. Here I am complaining about this when Fitz and Simmons’ lives are on the line -”</p>
<p>“Hey, it’s okay.” Coulson turns his body to hug her properly, stroking over her hair gently as she cries into his shirt.</p>
<p>“No, it’s not. Fitzsimmons…”</p>
<p>Coulson deflates, dropping his defeated gaze to the floor. “Simmons requested a moment alone with Fitz.”</p>
<p>Skye can only imagine what the pair are going to admit to each other in their last moments. Some part of her wonders whether or not one of them will confess their feelings for the other, not wanting things to be left unsaid. They’re best friends and have known each other since they were sixteen - that’s a hell of a lot of history between them that’s hanging over them as they’re forced to say goodbye.</p>
<p>She’s startled out of her thoughts by an alarm suddenly starting to blare throughout the plane. “What’s that?” she asks worriedly, sitting upright.</p>
<p>Coulson appears baffled and worried, glancing over towards the direction of the cockpit. “That sounds like the -”</p>
<p>Ward skids out of the briefing room and takes off down towards the cargo bay at a sprint. “Somebody’s lowering the ramp!” he shouts back at them.</p>
<p>Skye and Coulson exchange wide-eyed, shocked looks. They take off after Ward, almost falling down the stairs in their haste once they reach the cargo hold. The ramp has been completely lowered and powerful buffets of wind nearly knock Skye over, whipping her hair into her face. Absolute horror washes over her as she catches sight of Fitz screaming and pounding at the locked lab doors and Ward scrambling to pull a parachute backpack on as he runs and leaps off the ramp in an impromptu skydive. Simmons must have jumped. She stumbles closer to the edge of the ramp, squinting as she desperately tries to catch sight of her two teammates below. All she can see is the shimmering sea miles beneath them.</p>
<p>“Skye!” Coulson yells at her, over the roar of the wind. He’s struggling with the lab door, yanking at it frantically as he tries to get it open. “I can’t get Fitz out!”</p>
<p>Heart in her throat, she stumbles back from the ramp, knowing there’s nothing she can do to help Ward or Simmons, and runs up to the two men - who she can help. Fitz is tearing his hear out from distress as he continues shrieking incoherently at Coulson, slamming his hands against the lab door. He’s screeching about how the antiserum just knocked the lab rat out and actually works, but Simmons didn’t know - he just had to watch his best friend leap to her death. The door is seriously jammed shut, the lock refusing to give no matter how hard she and Coulson wrench it.</p>
<p>She raises her gaze to meet her SO’s and flickers them pointedly towards Fitz. Thankfully, he gets what she’s trying to silently say, because he draws Fitz’s attention away from the door, shouting at him to start getting another dose of the working antiserum ready for himself. He managed to pass the only spare dose they had to Ward through the quarantine letterbox before Ward jumped after Simmons.</p>
<p>Stripping the brace off her right arm, Skye places her hand over the lock and directs strong vibrations through it until the lock snaps. Heaving the door open, she hurries inside the lab to start helping Fitz while Coulson raises the ramp and dashes up the stairs to the cockpit to join May. Barely a minute later, the plane is turning, at such a harsh angle that Skye has to grab the lab-bench to avoid falling over. She concentrates on keeping everything steady inside the room, partially using her powers on a lower scale to absorb a lot of the tremors, as Fitz’s hands are already shaking a huge amount as he injects himself with the antiserum.</p>
<p>When Coulson staggers into the lab with a beaming grin on his face, announcing, “Ward caught her and they hit the water safely, and Simmons has been injected with the antiserum. They’re both okay.”</p>
<p>Fitz collapses to the ground with a sob of utter relief, pressing the palms of his trembling hands into his eyes. Skye kneels down beside him to pull him into a hug, rubbing his back soothingly while she cries herself. They allow themselves five minutes of reprieve and to recover from the nightmare that has been the last few hours before getting back to work. May liaises with the Moroccan office now to find them somewhere to land and arranges for rescue boats to be sent out, to pick Ward and Simmons up.</p>
<p>Wanting to be useful, Skye aids Fitz in packaging up the helmet ready for the Sandbox, and then acts as his lab assistant (he whines the entire time that she’s awful at it) to help manufacture more doses of the antiserum to go into lock-up along with it. They also figure they should keep a few doses themselves, just in case wiping down and disinfecting the lab leads to anybody else getting infected.</p>
<p>Once Simmons and Ward are back onboard, the biochemist having been suitably told off by Coulson for reckless behavior and risking her life, Skye hangs about in the lounge waiting for them to appear from her SO’s office. She knows that Simmons has to be desperate to see Fitz again, as the two of them only got a couple of minutes to reunite earlier (she doesn’t think she’s ever seen a fiercer embrace, or so many forehead kisses), but she just needs to hug her at least <i>once</i>. She thought Simmons was going to die today and hearing her heartbeat, feeling her vibrations, isn’t going to be enough reassurance for her to know she’s okay.</p>
<p>“Waiting for Simmons?” May asks, in a gentler voice than Skye would have expected, as she heads for the cockpit, having just signed off all the paperwork regarding their emergency landing.</p>
<p>“Yeah,” she replies nervously. “I - I need to check if she’s okay but I’m worried she might think I’m smothering her.”</p>
<p>The specialist shakes her head, telling her reassuringly, “I think she’ll appreciate it.”</p>
<p>“Yeah?”</p>
<p>“Hmm. She’s remarkably resilient, but it will take a while for her near-death experience to sink in. When it finally hits her, having you supporting her will help.” May glances over at the spiral staircase that leads up to Coulson’s office. “Are you worried about how he might reprimand her for breaking protocol?”</p>
<p>Skye honestly didn’t even know there is a protocol for an agent throwing themself out of a plane mid-flight without a parachute, but it sounds like a major health and safety thing. “Coulson was angry when he took them in there.”</p>
<p>“You don’t know about how a commanding officer reprimands an agent in their team, do you?” May guesses. “You only have your experience with Coulson to go off.”</p>
<p>She nods, swallowing. “Coulson was scary after the Miles incident,” she admits.</p>
<p>She’s a little concerned that he’ll be as thunderous to Simmons as he was towards her. Coulson would never hurt any of them, Skye knows that, but he still has the power to scare them. Yes, he promised her that he would never intimate or shout at her again, but he never made that promise to the others. She’s his protege and his consultant, while the rest of the team are agents employed under his command. It's different.</p>
<p>“Coulson won’t scold her harshly. He was as frightened as the rest of us,” May says. She seems to understand Skye’s trepidation without her needing to explain anything. “He’ll be relieved she’s safe.” She brushes a hand over her shoulder as she departs.</p>
<p>Ward and Simmons are joking about <i>skydiving</i> of all things when they finally emerge. Skye shuffles nervously, rubbing her left hand up and down her right forearm, free of its brace. The brace itself was cast aside before she quaked the lab door open, so she isn’t quite sure where it is now - probably lost in the holding bay somewhere, or on the lab floor underneath a bench. It’s weird to think that she’s actually excited for Simmons to complain to her about it, because she’s alive to get the chance to do so.</p>
<p>Their conversation continues, so she waits for them to notice her. Resisting the urge to run up to the biochemist and bowl her over is almost impossible. It’s a miracle, really, that the entire fuselage isn’t quivering as her emotions get the better of her, and her powers withstand being reined in.</p>
<p>“Oh, hello, Skye,” Simmons greets her brightly, with a small but genuine smile, when she catches sight of her.</p>
<p>Hearing her say her name is what tips her over the edge, and before Skye even realizes what she’s doing, she’s flying across the cabin and launching herself at Simmons and wrapping her in a tight hug. The biochemist’s heartbeat, slightly faster than usual, thuds loudly over the top of her softly buzzing vibrations, which sweep over her like a gentle wave washing the shore.</p>
<p>“Oh!” Simmons seems shocked for a fleeting second, but then melts into the embrace with a light chuckle. “This is nice,” she breathes, hugging her back.</p>
<p>“Don’t <i>ever</i> scare us like that again,” she whimpers into her shoulder. “<i>Ever</i>, Simmons, you hear me?”</p>
<p>“I won’t,” Simmons replies back softly. “And you know you can call me Jemma, Skye.”</p>
<p><i>Jemma.</i> She’s only heard Fitz call her that so far. She remembers reading in a SHIELD manual that it’s considered a little unprofessional for an agent to call another agent by their first name, but… well, she’s not an <i>agent</i>, and when has she ever followed the rules? Using Simmons’ first name will be how she shows her affection for the biochemist, the way she’s given Coulson the nickname A.C. to show her respect and endearment for her SO.</p>
<p>There’s a beat of silence and then Jemma asks, completely predictably, “Oh dear, where’s your right arm brace? Your microfractures are still healing, you still need to wear -”</p>
<p>Skye cuts her off with a laugh and readjusts her grip on Jemma so she’s hugging her from the side, rather than the front. “My arm is fine,” she reassures. “And I don’t care about the brace, okay? I can find it later. Right now… I’m just… <i>so happy</i> you’re safe.”</p>
<p>“I can tell,” Jemma says amusedly.</p>
<p>“Are you <i>purring?</i>” Ward questions in an incredulous tone.</p>
<p>Skye’s certain she must turn pink in embarrassment, from head to toe. She’s been vibrating from joy this whole time without having any knowledge of it, and that includes her respiratory muscles, resulting in a strange, continuous murmur like a kitten’s purr erupting from her chest.</p>
<p>“Oh, leave her alone, Ward,” Jemma admonishes him lightly. “If she is purring, it’s harmless, and I think it’s sweet. Let her be happy.”</p>
<p>“Yeah, but <i>how</i> is she purring? Humans don’t have the right vibratory muscles to -”</p>
<p>“You should go to Fitz, Jemma,” Skye interrupts Ward, ignoring his confused and irritated expression. “He’s in the lab. He’s waited long enough to see you again. He might just lose it and set the DWARFs to terrorize us all if we withhold you from him much longer.”</p>
<p>Jemma pats her back. “Do you want to come with?”</p>
<p>“No, it’s okay, you should talk to him alone, and I have to report in with Coulson,” Skye shakes her head, reluctantly de-tangling herself from the biochemist. “But I’m definitely hunting you down for more hugs from you later.”</p>
<p>“That, I will absolutely not object to.”</p>
<p>Ward trails after Jemma after she takes her leave, hitting Skye with one last scrutinizing, suspicious look before he walks off. Once she’s alone, she grimaces to herself. It was stupid for her not to notice she was purring. Jemma and Ward definitely know there’s something abnormal with her now; in fact, she reckons Jemma might have known for a while, considering all of her medical results. The biochemist has never pushed her for more tests, though, respecting her privacy. Maybe that means she might be able to trust Jemma with her powers someday soon. Ward, however, she doesn’t trust. But she has a lot to think about regarding her secrets and her faith in the team over the next coming days, for sure.</p>
<p>“Come in, Skye,” Coulson calls when she knocks on his office door. She quakes it open, hoping that it will rid her of some of the excess vibrations of stress she’s accumulated. He raises his eyebrows at the blatant display of her powers. “Bold of you. How would you have explained that if May was in here with me?”</p>
<p>“She’s up in the cockpit,” Skye dismisses. “I can sense her there.”</p>
<p>Coulson nods, and closes the file he’s been reading over, although he keeps his pen in hand, fiddling with it. “Exciting day, today, huh?” he sighs, running his free hand over his exhausted face.</p>
<p>“Exciting isn’t the way I’d describe it,” she snorts, dropping down into the chair in front of his desk. She pulls one of her legs up to hug her knee, smirking when Coulson shoots her an exasperated look for it, but says nothing. “I was really terrified for a moment we were actually gonna lose Jemma.”</p>
<p>“I was too,” he replies simply, not reacting to her calling the biochemist by her first name. Skye considers that permission to go ahead with her plan to call her that from now on. “But all that matters is that we didn’t, and Fitzsimmons beat the odds making that cure in time.”</p>
<p>She then bluntly asks a question that’s been bothering her ever since the first antiserum attempt failed: “What would you have done if Jemma hadn’t made it?”</p>
<p>Stunned, Coulson sets his pen down. His astonishment morphs into a rather serious expression. “I would have followed SHIELD protocols,” he says cautiously. “As her commanding officer, it would have been my job to inform Sci-tech Operations, write her KIA report, and then submit myself for investigation, as her death would have occurred under my watch. I would have also had to make the call to inform her next of kin.” His voice grows thick with remorse as he hauntedly tells her, “I’ve had to make those calls to families before, Skye. They’re the most awful and soul-crushing part of all this. There are times where this job doesn’t seem worth it, because yes, we save lives and we protect people, but losing one of your own? That’s the worst thing in the world.”</p>
<p>“I don’t have a family for you to call if I die,” she says, without thinking.</p>
<p>Because it’s true. Her father is a psycho, she has no idea who her mom is, the foster system protocol meant that she’s never settled down <i>anywhere</i>…</p>
<p>Coulson stares at her, his gaze heavy, probably his heart too. Skye’s own heart feels anything but heavy. It’s racing, her brisk pulse echoing as her blood pounds in her ears. “I wouldn’t have to call anybody,” he responds. “Your family is right here. And you’re not going to die. Not on my watch.”</p>
<p>Skye nods, but loses herself in thought for the next few minutes. Coulson allows the silence to sit between them comfortably, picking up his tablet, and beginning to work. Tracing circles and random shapes on the edge of his desk, Skye lets her vibrations oscillate down to her fingertips, where they’re absorbed into the wood pleasantly before reflecting back.</p>
<p>Death is something she’s thought about many times over before. Existential crises are not new to her. Having superpowers and existing as something that is both less and more than human - although she’s not quite sure what she is precisely - means that she questions her own existence practically on a daily basis. In fact, she’s considered taking her own life a couple of times before, when she thought she had the chance to when locked up in the science facility, or directly after escaping when she was a homeless, helpless fifteen-year-old lost in the world with uncontrolled powers. Whenever Skye thought she was close to being captured again and taken back to the research facility, she always told herself she would shoot herself or throw herself off a bridge, rather than return to a life of medical torture and experimentation.</p>
<p>“If my father or Spectre Research Group ever catch up to me, I want you to kill me before they can take me,” she announces gravely.</p>
<p>Coulson’s tablet slips out of his hands and clatters onto the floor. He regards her with alarm. “Skye.”</p>
<p>“I want you to promise me, A.C.”</p>
<p>“You know I can’t do that,” he replies, suddenly furious. “Don’t ask me to kill you, Skye! I won’t! I can’t make you that promise, no more than I could to anybody else on this team if they told me to kill them before letting an enemy take them hostage.”</p>
<p>She surges to her feet, heading towards the door. “Fine, then I guess if it happens, I’ll just have to kill myself,” she snaps. Coulson’s hand darts out and snags her right arm, stopping her. His grasp is tight enough to put pressure on her half-healed bruises and fractures, and she cringes. “You’re hurting me.”</p>
<p>He releases his grip slowly. “You can’t tell me that you’re planning to kill yourself if things become dire and then expect me not to stop you from storming away,” Coulson says calmly. “We have to talk about this.”</p>
<p>“There’s nothing to talk about,” she whispers, refusing to meet his eyes as tears brim in her own. “I would rather die than go back to that lab to be dissected, torn apart, stitched back up again, and then brainwashed and turned into a weapon. If there’s a chance of that happening, and I’m the one who has to pull the trigger to end it because you won’t, then so be it.”</p>
<p>Coulson looks heartbroken. “I don’t want to have to watch you die.”</p>
<p>“Then when the time comes, you’ll have to close your eyes.” She turns to leave again, too tired to debate this with him, but Coulson steps in front of the door, blocking her exit… caging her in. The cuff on her ankle burns. She’s as much a prisoner on this plane as she is a part of the team. She tenses, flinches back. “Lighthouse.”</p>
<p>His shoulders slumping, Coulson drops the current topic of argument after hearing their codeword, and instead asks shortly, “What’s wrong?”</p>
<p>“I want to go to my bunk because I don’t want to cry in front of you, but you’re trapping me in here,” she replies, equally frank.</p>
<p>Coulson sighs but concedes, moving away from the door. Hesitating, she throws her arms around him in a brief hug before hurrying away. She passes May on her way out; the specialist halts when she sees the tear-tracks on her cheeks but doesn’t comment on it, letting her go so she can step into Coulson’s office herself. Wiping her face with the back of her hand, Skye makes a beeline to her bunk; she cracks a grin when she sees that Fitz has left her right arm brace on her bed, along with a bag of Maltesers.</p>
<p>She’s just popping a piece of the chocolate into her mouth when a knock on the doorframe causes her to jump. Ward pokes his head it around her half-open door. “We’ll be landing at the Sandbox in about an hour,” he tells her. “Fitzsimmons want to grab beers and microwave s’mores to sit on the ramp and watch the sun set over the desert. Apparently it’s spectacular viewing. Wanna join us?”</p>
<p>“Sure, as long as you actually let me have a beer this time,” she replies.</p>
<p>“I think we can let the fact you’re underage slide just this once,” he smirks. “If Coulson or May say anything… just remember that where we’re landing, it’s legal to drink at age eighteen.”</p>
<p>“Good to know.” She smiles and turns away to start working the brace back onto her sore wrist.</p>
<p>“Let me help,” Ward offers. She blinks at him, surprised, but lets him. He’s a little rougher than she expected but he probably doesn’t mean to hurt her. Once it’s snugly fitted over her forearm again, he mutters, “I’m glad you’re still here. See you soon,” and then departs. It’s not an ‘I forgive you’ or ‘sorry for giving you the cold shoulder for the past week’ or even ‘we’re good’... but it’s good enough.</p>
<p>Coulson said that this team are her family. She’s never had a proper one of those before. Certainly not a permanent one.</p>
<p>Maybe she can make this home work out.</p>
<hr/>
<p>In the aftermath of nearly losing Jemma, the team close ranks and rally around each other even more than before. Ward and May, who at the beginning of all of this were more inclined to spend their free-time in solitude, start joining the ‘BUS kids’, as Coulson has coined the trio of Skye, Jemma, and Fitz, for movie marathons and board game nights. Their commanding officer does remain at a slight distance from them, but he cooks dinner for them every night - it turns out he’s the only person on the plane who’s vaguely talented in the kitchen - and he and Skye still have their post-dinner hang-outs in his office.</p>
<p>Coulson has seriously stepped up in his mentor-game, and is now focusing on teaching her about the different disciplines within SHIELD. She can tell that he’s hoping she’ll one day turn around and ask him if she can train to become an official agent. She’s content with being a consultant for now, and has no desire to join SHIELD until she solves the mystery of why and how SHIELD were/are involved with Spectre Research Group and her father.</p>
<p>On the day marking two months since she joined the team, Jemma declares her forearms are fully healed, and it’s safe to remove the braces. All of the mottled bruises have cleared up thanks to her rapid healing and the bruise cream, and her wrists feel better than they’ve ever felt before. Skye hugs her in thanks for being so patient with her despite her stubbornness. They celebrate with Fitz by setting up a corner of the lab just for her, out of the way of all the beakers, conical flasks, and circuit boards, and near the 3D printer. The last few weeks keeping them company as they work have convinced Fitzsimmons that she belongs with the Science Squad rather than the Buff Brigade.</p>
<p>Of course, in reality, she’s buffer than everybody in the Buff Brigade, if they’re talking buffness in relation to power. It’s fine though. She quite likes being considered one of the geeks.</p>
<p>“Hey guys,” Ward calls from the stairs. “Just thought I’d give you a heads up, we’re on course for Siberia right now. Coulson, May, and I have been tasked with an agent extraction. The three of you aren’t needed, though, so you can continue… doing whatever the hell you’re doing.”</p>
<p>“Teaching Skye how to use the holotable,” Fitz replies, rolling his eyes. “You could probably benefit from a few lessons yourself, Ward. They don’t train you on holographic interfacing in Ops and there might come a time where -”</p>
<p>“I’m good, thanks, Fitz.”</p>
<p>“‘The three of you aren’t needed’,” Skye mocks once he’s gone, doing an impression of Ward’s voice and adding some nasally tone to it, making Fitzsimmons snicker. “I bet you they’ll need at least one of us either during or immediately after the mission.”</p>
<p>“Field agents and specialists do always seem to overestimate their understanding of tech, biochemistry, and engineering, so you’re most likely right,” Jemma muses. “It’s an agent extraction, which means he’ll probably have a data chip that needs to be removed from some orifice. The case will then need to be delicately deconstructed, and the chip itself mined for intel.”</p>
<p>“Yeah, as if Coulson, May, and Ward will be able to do all those three,” Fitz scoffs.</p>
<p>“Wait, I’m sorry, back up - Jemma, did you say <i>orifice?</i> EW.”</p>
<p>“Oh, grow up, Skye.”</p>
<p>Their prediction comes true, because when the three field agents return after picking up Agent Shaw from where he was working undercover in an underground prison, Coulson strides into the lab with the agent behind him, announcing that they need Jemma’s expertise to perform a paranasal extraction - which sounds horrifying, and when Fitz describes to her what it is, Skye thinks is actually disgusting. She offers to decrypt the chip and extricate the data after Jemma has successfully removed it.</p>
<p>“Sorry, Skye. I’m afraid the mission’s classified. Clearance level 8. Can’t have your hands on this,” Coulson says apologetically, side-stepping past her to head up to his office with Agent Shaw shadowing him.</p>
<p>All the other team members hum and nod in acceptance and understanding, but Skye is left reeling, feeling very much like the odd kid out in a dodgeball game, who’s been abandoned on the sidelines. The child left behind at the orphanage after all her friends are fostered and adopted out, because nobody wants a broken kid. Coulson has <i>never</i> cut her out like that before.</p>
<p>“Wait, I’m confused,” she murmurs, snagging Jemma’s elbow. “He can just… shut us out of the process like that, whenever he wants?”</p>
<p>“Well, yes, he did say the mission is level 8,” Jemma responds, shrugging her shoulders like she’s used to this sort of thing, and it doesn’t bother her at all. “We’re not, so that means we can’t know anything about it.”</p>
<p>She’s still puzzled. “But… aren’t we all on the same team?” Surely that means that if one of their team members gets involved in a mission, all of them do by default.</p>
<p>“No need to get started on one of your socialist riffs,” Fitz laughs. Jemma drags him back to the lab, leaving Skye alone with the two specialists.</p>
<p>None of them are explaining anything. It hurts. “So we’re not on the same team?”</p>
<p>Ward takes pity on her. “SHIELD's whole infrastructure is based on the hierarchy and compartmentalization of intelligence. It’s separated by levels. Every agent can't have the intel on every mission. It makes the entire organization vulnerable. So whatever level an agent is, they can only access information up to that particular level. We’re level 7, so we’re not allowed to know any level 8 intel.”</p>
<p>“Okay, fine,” Skye frowns, glancing over at him and May. “But you two level 7s just fought your way out of an underground Siberian prison for intel for this level 8 mission, aren’t you entitled to know what it is?”</p>
<p>Ward chuckles at her like she’s just told a hilarious joke, which stings her even more than Fitz’s earlier laugh. May must catch sight of her injured expression, because she explains gently, “Coulson's got you used to the plane, the way we do missions here. The reality of it is that as a special operative unit, we usually work on our own and get given our own missions, separate from the rest of SHIELD’s operations. Levels don’t matter when we’re working on those missions. Fitzsimmons are only level 5, and you don’t have a level, but you get access to the same information as the rest of us. The Hub is different.”</p>
<p>“The Hub?” she repeats. “What's the Hub?” It wasn’t mentioned anywhere in any of the SHIELD manuals she’s been reading.</p>
<p>“It’s a SHIELD facility that functions as one of the three headquarters. It’s where most assignments are planned and operated from, and provides back-end support for ongoing operations. There are also research labs there that primarily focus on the invention and development of new weapons, drugs, and mission equipment.”</p>
<p>Skye’s heart plummets. Trying to keep a quiver of fear out of her voice, she asks in a falsely casual voice, “They do research with genetics and stuff there? Animal, human, alien?”</p>
<p>Maybe it’s too unusual and specific a question, because May halts in her journey back to the cockpit to glance over at her with a blank look that reeks of suspicion. “I wouldn’t know,” she answers. “Sci-tech has never been my area. Fitzsimmons will likely be filing the patent for the Night Night Gun while we’re there, though, and as you were involved in its development, you could wander around the labs with them.” May stalks off. “Flight will take approximately fourteen hours. Tai chi and sparring this evening, instead of in the morning, as ETA at the Hub will be 6am. Flight corridors around that area shift constantly, so I need to be on stick.”</p>
<p>She nods with a forced smile. Once she’s left alone in the living quarters, though, all of her emotions overwhelm her. Fleeing to her bunk, Skye hastily slides the door shut and curls up on her bed, hugging her pillow to her chest. She doesn’t know how to feel, because it’s almost as if she has too many feelings. On one hand, the Hub might be able to provide her access to the reacted file about the foster system protocol placed onto her as a baby… she might be able to find a trace of her mother, and perhaps get an explanation for why she was left at the orphanage in the first place.</p>
<p>On the other hand, there might be moles from Spectre Research Group placed in the building - people who will know who she is, what she can do, and how valuable she is to her father and Spectre. Then she’d be completely screwed, because they’d find out she’s working on a SHIELD team and work out a way to track her movements. They could blow her cover, try and take her in. There’s even a chance she could accidentally run into the SHIELD geneticist who was there at the facility, working on Project Quake. Would she recognize them? Is that geneticist one of the psychopaths whose faces haunt her in her sleep?</p>
<p>Skye feels as if she’s deep underwater, the pressure crushing her entire body. Her lungs feel as if they’re filled with a combination of lead and acid. Breathing is so difficult that she has to wheeze, no amount of oxygen feeling like it’s enough, despite her hyperventilating. Her powers respond to the adrenalin flooding her veins by going into overdrive, and before she knows it, she’s vibrating the whole plane. The tremors aren’t strong enough to act like turbulence, but everything around her shivers.</p>
<p>Her vision fuzzes up and her head feels like a block of metal weighing on her shoulders, with all of the vibrations bounding around her skull and making it pound. Running her fingers through her hair, Skye presses her thumbs into her temples with a soft groan, trying to release the tension there and direct the vibrations out of her, before they trigger the start of a migraine. Blackness leaches in, causing all of her senses to be dulled.</p>
<p>She spends the rest of the afternoon in a dissociated state. When Ward jolts her out of it by knocking on her bunk wall to call that Coulson’s serving dinner, she’s mortified by how much time she’s wasted by sitting in her bunk having a panic attack for hours upon hours. The mere idea of food causes nausea to clench her stomach, and she can’t bring herself to face the rest of the team lest they start harpering on about how excited they are to go to the Hub - when she’s the opposite, absolutely <i>dreading</i> it - so she doesn’t join them to eat. She’ll pay for that decision later because of her fast metabolism, no doubt, but she’ll risk it. She’ll risk angering May as well, by missing tai chi and sparring.</p>
<p>What she doesn’t count on, is Coulson going full father-figure on her and turning up at her bunk door with a bowl of lasagne and a portion of garlic bread. “I know you’re upset with me because I’ve had to shut you out of the mission due to an intelligence hierarchy you don’t agree with, but you still have to eat,” he pleads through her closed and locked door.</p>
<p>“Not hungry,” she shouts. She considers it a victory that her voice doesn’t crack.</p>
<p>“I understand your frustration about being blocked from information. You’re a consultant, not an agent, and that means that off the plane, you barely reach level 1. I’m sorry, there’s nothing I can do.” When he falls silent and she doesn’t respond, he continues, “Skye, please. Can you at least tell me if this is a lighthouse situation? If you need to me to leave, I get it, but I don’t think you should be alone right now. If there’s somebody else you would rather talk to, I can get them for you.”</p>
<p>Her panic attack earlier indicates that it is a lighthouse situation. While she appreciates his offer to leave and ask another team member to keep her company, this isn’t something she can talk about to the others. Only Coulson knows her story, which means only Coulson can help.</p>
<p>She quakes the lock and then the door open. Coulson doesn’t blink or show any sign of surprise, simply peering in at her, his worried expression softening when he sees her coiled up in a ball and staring at him with weary eyes. Setting the food down on her bedside table, he waits until she gives him the go-ahead to sit at the end of the bed. </p>
<p>“Wanna talk?” he offers.</p>
<p>“When we arrive at the Hub, I’m not leaving the plane,” she tells him, something she decided somewhere in the middle of her anxiety episode. “I’m staying right here in my bunk, for however long I have to, and I’m not coming out again until we’re in the air and flying away.”</p>
<p>“I don’t think that’s going to be possible,” he says with a grimace. “The BUS is due for maintenance so they’re going to be working on it as soon as we’re parked, so none of us can stay on board. Plus, they’re expecting the whole team to make a show at the Hub. We’re the first special operative unit that’s been managed by an in-the-field commanding officer, independent of a SHIELD HQ control team, for decades. Higher-ups want to check in with all the team members to see how it’s going.”</p>
<p>She picks at a loose thread on her throw blanket. “But I’m a consultant, not an agent, so they don’t need to interview me.”</p>
<p>“You’re a member of the team, aren’t you?”</p>
<p>“Am I?”</p>
<p>Coulson narrows his eyes at her. “What’s this really about?” he asks. “You’re annoyed by the classified mission, but that’s not what <i>this</i> -” he waves up and down her - “is about. Why don’t you want to go to the Hub? I thought you’d be ecstatic. It’ll give me the chance to try and find an unredacted version of the foster system protocol file. I might even be able to do some digging into how SHIELD and Spectre Research Group are linked.” The penny drops. The bewilderment on his face morphs into dawning apprehension. “Oh. You think that there might be people from Spectre at the Hub. You’re scared they might recognize you and give your location up to your father, or attempt to capture you again.”</p>
<p>Skye rubs her eyes with the back of her hand, keeping her head bowed so he can’t see that she’s teared up. “If I seriously can’t stay on the plane, then put me up in a hotel or something,” she mumbles. “I don’t want to go in there. I’ll write a cheesy report on how the team has taught me the importance and power of teamwork and friendship, instead of doing an interview.”</p>
<p>“You still have to come into the building with us, Skye, I’m so sorry,” Coulson says regretfully. “Maybe if you’d said something earlier - you know I’d never make you do something you don’t want to - but I’ve already told Agent Hand you’re joining us.”</p>
<p>She shakes her head, panic rising in her again and making her heart flutter. “Yeah, but I wouldn’t be allowed in any of the classified areas or mission briefings anyway, because like you said, I’m barely level 1. So if I do come into the Hub with you, you and the others are just gonna abandon me in the lobby or something and I’m gonna have to fend for myself but I can’t use my powers in front of all the agents in there and you don’t let me carry a gun, and that means if anybody from Spectre is there, they could grab me and you’d be none the wiser -”</p>
<p>“Okay, okay, I’m calling lighthouse myself.” Coulson slides closer to her and plucks her pillow from her grasp so she has nothing to fidget with, and is forced to look at him. “You’re on the verge of a panic attack, sweetheart.”</p>
<p><i>Sweetheart</i>. That’s a new one. It’s been years since somebody last used a pet name with her, excluding when Miles called her Daisy teasingly, although that was more of a nickname… she thinks the very last time might have been her father, and he was obsessed with calling her <i>baby girl</i>. The mere memory of it makes shivers run down her spine. Coulson calling her sweetheart brings an entirely new feeling, though - a warm, pleasant, fuzzy one in her chest and tingling down to her fingertips. She likes it.</p>
<p>“Alright,” Coulson announces, after a moment. “How about this… I’m going to call a friend of mine who’ll be able to get you temporary level 5 access for the Hub. That way you can stay with the team at all times. I’ll tell Simmons that you’re nervous about being around new SHIELD agents considering your hacktivist past, and ask her to make sure you’re never alone. And we’ll avoid the more public areas in the Hub, just in case. If anything happens where you feel unsafe, you come directly to me, say the codeword, and I get you out of there, no questions asked.” He holds his hand out to her. “Deal?”</p>
<p>Skye debates internally, running it over in her head. It’s not a flawless plan, but it’s a decent one, and she believes the team will probably be able to keep her out of danger. She grasps his hand and shakes it. “Deal.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Next update: 25th Oct</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>fuck 2020 but thank you all for your continued support, honestly so happy you're continuing to enjoy the fic x</p><p><b>EDIT:</b> I have a Tumblr now because... why the hell not? https://vulpeculaanser.tumblr.com/<br/>Might post sneak peeks on the Sundays I don't post chapters, if there's interest *shrug*</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The Hub is bustling with activity when they arrive and disembark from the safety of the BUS. Skye keeps her arm linked with Jemma’s and tries to swallow down her panic, breathing slowly and evenly as she fights the urge to run. The building is <i>huge</i>. It brings to light the massiveness of SHIELD as an organization, and frankly, it terrifies her. Sensing her unease, Coulson, May, Ward, and Fitz close ranks around her and Jemma.</p><p>She recognizes nobody, much to her relief; she honestly doesn’t know how she would react if she saw somebody from Spectre. The Hub is already incredibly overwhelming for her because of her powers, with everything buzzing a mile a minute and vibrations of hundreds of people around them. She doesn’t think she would be able to concentrate enough to shatter a glass, let alone quake someone in self-defense. The only reason she’s not slipping into a panic attack or sensory overload is because of the body contact with Jemma, and being surrounded by the team. Their vibrations are familiar and strong, ringing louder than all the others, and they’re enough to keep her grounded.</p><p>“You doing okay?” Jemma checks in.</p><p>“Didn’t realize Big Brother was this… big,” she admits to the biochemist as they walk through the small crowd towards the front reception desk, the team encircling them like a shield.</p><p>“Oh, Skye, this is nothing! Wait until you see the Triskellion!” Jemma gushes. “Or SHIELD HQ in New York, that place takes up two city blocks, over- and underground!”</p><p>“Is everybody wearing the same suit?” she asks dazedly, peering around. “I can’t tell. Someone tell me why?” She blinks and then squints at Ward and Coulson. “You two are wearing the same suit too.”</p><p>“Comms and ops,” Fitz throws over his shoulder with a grin. “They all like to dress like businessmen and CEOs because they think it makes them look cool.”</p><p>“No, we do not!” Ward scowls.</p><p>“Do we look cool?” Coulson questions, raising an eyebrow.</p><p>She runs her gaze up and down both of them. “No, you look like politicians,” is Skye’s short response.</p><p>He wrinkles his nose in distaste. “Fantastic. Republican or Democrat?”</p><p>May cuts in tersely, “You better hope Democrat.”</p><p>The man running the front desk has the all team’s access badges ready by the time they walk up, except for Skye’s. Coulson has to lean over and tell him that there should be one more for their consultant. They have to wait a couple of minutes for the receptionist to find it; a couple of agents approach Ward and say hello, and Skye quickly realizes that they must be specialists as well, who have worked with him before. She can’t hear their conversation at all, but when one of them eyes her up curiously, she twitches nervously. But the agents then depart without casting her a second glance, and she relaxes, feeling ridiculous for being so paranoid.</p><p>She’s called back to attention when the man returns with her badge, passing it over to Coulson. Her SO checks it over with scrutinizing eyes before pinning it to Skye’s jacket himself in a very fatherly motion as they head down a set of steps.</p><p>“Why is my badge different?” she asks curiously, noting how all of theirs have a yellow band at the top, while hers has a blue one.</p><p>“Consultant’s badge,” Coulson explains. “But it should get you into all the level 5 access areas.” He casts her a pointed look. “You’re lucky Maria was in a jovial mood when I called her. If she hadn’t got you that badge, the cuff on your ankle would have functioned as one. And by the way, while it won’t magnetize you to any walls to stop you from going through access doors, it will still block you from using any of the computers here at the Hub, so I advise you to stay away from all keyboards. Stick with Fitzsimmons, they’ll keep you out of trouble.”</p><p>“We’ll certainly try to, sir, but she seems to attract it,” Jemma sighs.</p><p>“It’s not my fault,” she tries to argue.</p><p>Coulson shoots her an exasperated but mildly amused look. “We’ll have to agree to disagree on that one.”</p><p>An agent strolls up to them as they’re approaching an access door, shaking Ward and May’s hands in greetings before turning on Coulson. His badge identifies him as Agent Sitwell. Skye thinks she’s heard Ward complain about him being obnoxious before. “Agent Coulson. Glad to see you feeling better. Agent Hand is waiting for you in the briefing room. Your level 7s can join us in the briefing.”</p><p>Coulson nods. “Stay with Fitzsimmons,” he tells Skye sternly one last time, pointing at the two scientists before scanning in and vanishing along with Sitwell, May, and Ward.</p><p><i>Stay with Fitzsimmons</i>, he said. She was half expecting him to follow up with, <i>Sit. Roll over. Good girl.</i> “I’m not a dog,” she bristles. If anything… she purrs, so she’s a cat.</p><p>“C’mon, Skye,” Fitz says cheerfully, tugging on her arm. “Jemma and I are dying to go check out the tech corridor! They’ll have all sorts of things you’ll be interested in!”</p><p>The tech corridor is pretty cool, but she mostly hovers behind Fitzsimmons lost in thought while they fawn over new inventions, too distracted by wondering what mission exactly Coulson, Ward, and May are getting themselves into. In the end, it turns out Coulson and May aren’t going to be involved in it at all - Ward and <i>Fitz</i> are. She’s stunned, to put it mildly. Fitz has no field training whatsoever, and they’re going to be sending him deep, deep into hostile territory, without comms or any back-up, to dismantle a dangerous weapon.</p><p>When she hears Fitz muttering to Jemma that it’s some sort of sonic vibration device that can trigger nuclear weapons from a distance, Skye almost feels like running up to Coulson and yelling for him to send her in instead of the engineer. She’s at least got <i>some</i> experience in the field, and can handle herself. She can fight, she can shoot, she has <i>powers</i>. Fitz has only ever held a gun before because he was designing and building it.</p><p>The BUS’ maintenance has finished by the time comes for the mission drop off, so they assemble in the briefing room to run over the basics of the op one more time. When they’re saying goodbye to Ward and Fitz, speaking to them for the last time before they go dark and start the mission, anxiety cramps her stomach and thickens her throat.</p><p>This feels wrong. </p><p>“How can this feel okay to you?” she questions in a whisper. “Shouldn't we be going with them?”</p><p>Coulson continues swiping on the holotable screen and spares her a passing glance before focusing back on the information. “Don’t worry, Skye. The people who put these ops together are the best of the best. They know what they're doing.”</p><p>“Well, the only person I trust to manage a mission for them is you. I’m not going to sleep until I know Fitz and Ward are back with us again,” she murmurs, walking away.</p><p>“Me neither,” she thinks she hears Coulson mutter.</p><p>Later on, as she’s sitting in the lab with Jemma, with a couple of lower-level techs milling around, that concern takes over her again. It quickly turns to frustration, though, when May refuses to give up any information whatsoever on how the mission is going. Skye gets the whole idea of it being classified, but Jemma is currently chewing her nails down to their beds in all her anxiety over Fitz, clearly distressed over the idea of her (lab) partner in crime being involved in such a treacherous mission. She doesn’t understand how May can stand to see her so perturbed - or how she can stand the concept of Fitz, untrained for the field as he is, in danger.</p><p>Being left in the dark is torturous. May’s non-commital answer that they’ll react when they have new intel is not enough for her.</p><p>She corners Coulson on the tarmac, where he’s signing off the necessary paperwork for the BUS’ fuel line checks. As soon as he sees her, he heaves a sigh. “I can’t tell you anything about Ward and Fitz’s mission, Skye. I know it's hard to hear, but you don’t have the clearance.”</p><p>“Jemma is seriously unraveling without Fitz,” she tells him bluntly. “I think this might be the longest they’ve been apart in years.” Coulson says nothing. Growling under her breath, her patience snaps. “I may not have clearance, but I have eyes. I saw six squads in full tactical gear, three crates of RPGs, and a full crew of analysts heading to Operations. Are you really telling me that has nothing to do with Ward and Fitz's mission?”</p><p>His short response is comprised of three, flatly-spoken words. “Trust the system.”</p><p>Hers is just as simple: “You know I can’t.”</p><p>And so the next logical step is finding information on the mission herself, since Coulson and May both refuse to give her answers. She feels rather betrayed by that, actually, especially bitter at the fact her SO is telling her to trust a system that has messed with her life since she was a baby, and has left her traumatized after years of abandonment, neglect, and abuse of many kinds. Her new plan involves enlisting Jemma in some ‘bad girl shenanigans’, as the biochemist calls them. She might manipulate her a little to get her to agree to help her, but when Skye says that Fitz might be injured or being tortured right now, she’s not exactly lying. He could be injured or being tortured, and they would have absolutely no idea. That’s precisely why they need to hack those files, to find out what’s really going on.</p><p>Since she can’t get anywhere near the computers without the band around her ankle locking down the systems, she puts Jemma in charge of plugging in a flash drive programmed with a decoy trawler. It will trick SHIELD into thinking she’s just scrolling Reddit and Twitter by simulating her normal online activity, while she’ll actually be hacking the files on Ward and Fitz’s mission.</p><p>Jemma manages to get the program loaded, but to Skye’s utter disbelief, also ends up shooting Sitwell in the chest with the Night Night Gun when he almost ruins their mini-operation. Skye was planning on secretly using her powers to explode his phone in his back pocket to create a big enough distraction for Jemma to slip away, but the biochemist whips out the dendrotoxin pistol and fires it before she can even raise her hand from her side. Gaping at her friend in shock, she just splutters when Simmons returns to her with a sheepish expression after shoving an unconscious Sitwell into a closet, telling her to go and fetch May to sort all this out, because there’s no way she can deal with it.</p><p>Skye slips into a small, empty mission briefing room for some privacy before slipping the laptop Jemma snuck her from the BUS’ lab out of the bag on her shoulder. She only has three minutes to access the Hub’s mainframe, so she works as fast as she can, hands trembling because of the sudden surge of adrenalin. It’s been a while since she ran a major hack like this.</p><p>“Alright, boys, let’s find out where you really are,” she mutters, fingers flying over the keyboard.</p><p>It takes longer than she likes to hack into the secure files, and then she gets distracted for a moment by the <i>Redacted Files</i> section. Shaking her head, she focuses back on the task. The file about the foster system protocol placed on her as a baby can wait - Ward and Fitz cannot. And then, to her stupefaction and alarm, she realizes just how true that is... when she reads <i>NO EXTRACTION</i> on their mission file.</p><p>“Oh my god, no extraction?” she whispers to herself, tears brimming in her eyes.</p><p>A hand appears out of nowhere and slams the top of the laptop down. She startles, eyes flashing up to catch sight of Coulson’s face. He’s not angry like she expected - mostly just resigned and crestfallen. “What are you doing, Skye?” he shakes his head. “What did I tell you?”</p><p>“You told me to trust the system,” she hisses, standing abruptly and stabbing her finger into his chest. Coulson obviously doesn’t anticipate this move, because he reels back slightly, looking shocked. “And the system has sent Fitz and Ward into hostile territory <i>TO DIE</i>.”</p><p>“I am disappointed in you,” Coulson says sadly, instead of reacting to that information. He swipes the laptop up from the table and tucks it under his arm, placing his other hand on her shoulder to begin guiding her out of the room and then out of the access door. “I trusted you with level 5 privileges, with looser restrictions, and you exploited that trust. You just hacked a level 8 secure server, saw operational plans that you have no context for. If details get out, the whole operation could be compromised and lives could be lost, Ward and Fitz among them.”</p><p>Skye wrenches herself out of his grasp, accidentally using a smidge of her powers as she does so to knock him away from her a foot. Once free, she takes a few stumbling steps back until she hits a wall. Her breathing stutters with panic as she fires back, “Lives <i>are</i> gonna be lost, because they sent Ward and Fitz on a suicide mission! I saw everything - the troop placements, the aerial assault.” When Coulson tries to approach her again, his hands reaching out, she shoves him back. “<i>NO!</i> Don’t touch me!” She should probably Lighthouse, but she’s too angry to even consider saying their codeword.</p><p>He clenches his jaw. “Calm down.”</p><p>“Don’t tell me to <i>calm down</i>. Once Ward and Fitz disable that device, there's going to be a huge attack on that compound, with no extraction plan, meaning that SHIELD are planning for them to <i>die</i>, and <i>you hid that from us!</i>” Her voice breaks during the last part of her statement, and the ground beneath them tremors. Coulson looks down nervously. “<i>On purpose!</i>”</p><p>He raises his arms into the surrender position slowly, trying to soothe her, to no avail. “Look, okay. I know we said we would communicate better, but you don't have the clearance to know about the mission. I didn't hide anything from you that you’re allowed to know.”</p><p>She laughs bitterly, the sound emerging from her mouth sounding somewhat hysterical. “You and SHIELD and your stupid clearance levels. Is that really what SHIELD's all about? Level 5s and level 7s are more expendable than level 8? Is that all we are, just a <i>number</i> to you? We’re not even <i>people</i> in your eyes, are we? We’re just <i>assets</i>.”</p><p>Her tears spill over. She’s cried so much over the last two months, more than she thinks she’s cried in the past year. But everything is so emotionally overwhelming… she’s not prepared to cope with any of this. Coulson swiftly grabs her by the elbow to drag her into an alcove so nobody can stare at them, which she hates how she’s grateful for, because it means she can break down without agents gawking at her. As soon as they’re alone, she yanks her arm away from him again and recoils against the wall, reveling in the crushed expression her flinch puts on his face.</p><p>Her breathing increases in frequency to the point where she’s hyperventilating as Skye wheezes, “God, just like how we all were at Spectre. We weren’t people there, we were just their experiments, their lab rats. Dispensible. Replaceable. And that’s how SHIELD treats its agents. It’s how they’re treating Ward and Fitz, and you don’t give a shit, do you?”</p><p>Coulson runs a hand over his face. “Are you done?”</p><p>“Done with making my point that your oh-so-trustworthy system sent our teammates to die, or with you and SHIELD entirely, because I’m honestly not sure at this point!” she snarls. Coulson withers, hearing that. Maybe it’s a step too far, but she can’t believe that he’s okay with all of this - with what SHIELD are doing to Ward and Fitz. Swallowing as her throat suddenly thickens, she croaks, “Those are two people we care about. On the plane, you're always telling me to think outside the box, so I went off-book 'cause I was trying to watch their backs.”</p><p>“I know,” he replies, in a much sterner voice than she expects. “But you have to understand - if SHIELD keeps a secret from you, it’s for good reason, and our team can go off-book because there <i>is</i> a book. A Hub. An organization watching our backs. An organization that you, as our team’s consultant and my rookie, are a part of, whether you like it or not right now.”</p><p>“I don’t like it,” she responds, trembling all over. “And I don’t want to be part of it, if this is how it treats its agents. If they’re willing to cast aside Ward and Fitz, two of the most amazing people I’ve ever met, like trash at the end of this mission without a second thought, then SHIELD’s promise to protect people is an empty one. Because Ward and Fitz went into this thinking there’s an extraction plan for them, when there isn’t. SHIELD aren’t protecting them, they’re <i>using</i> them, as a means to an end.” Coulson looks away from her, unable to meet her tear-filled eyes. For a brief second, she thinks she’s reached him. Cracked that trained, rock-solid exterior to evoke some empathy in him. “Did you know? Did you know there’s no extraction plan for them?”</p><p>But he’s back to SHIELD-drone robot-mode, voice carefully controlled, when he replies, “That’s classified. And as your SO, I have to tell you that after your reckless actions today, I’ll be writing a misconduct report -”</p><p>“Fuck you,” she spits, hand pushing him out of the way with a small quake to show him just how pissed she is as she storms back to the BUS. “Fuck you, fuck SHIELD, and fuck your intelligence classification system that’s going to kill my friends.”</p><p>“Skye -”</p><p>“<i>FUCK. YOU.</i>”</p><p>He doesn’t follow.</p>
<hr/><p>They rescue Ward and Fitz from the compound minutes before the SHIELD air-strike takes place. It’s a close call. Skye dreads to think about whether or not they would have survived if she hadn’t fessed up to May about her snooping and told her about the lack of extraction. She, May, and Jemma were prepared to break protocol and perform an extraction themselves in a stolen quinjet, but then last minute, Coulson turned up with authorization to take the BUS - although when Skye risked a glance over his shoulder at the paperwork, he clearly faked the signatures needed.</p><p>They have to head back to the Hub for Ward and Fitz to be debriefed, and also finish up their operative unit interviews, but after that… they’ll be free to operate as their own independent team again. Skye is honestly relieved. She would happily never return to the Hub again, for as long as she consults with SHIELD. Her place is with the team on the plane. They have her back, and she has theirs. May has shown her that she’ll go above and beyond to protect the members of their team, no matter how many rules she has to break, and Skye’s trust in her has solidified.</p><p>She has tempestuous feelings about the other authority figure on board the plane. Coulson did pull through for them in the end, but she’s never going to forget his impassive reaction when she revealed Fitz and Ward were sent on the mission to die. His threat to write up a misconduct report when she asked if he knew about their lack of extraction plan. She doesn’t know how to simultaneously juxtapose and collate the two distinctly different versions of Coulson she’s seen: her warm, kind, and patient mentor, and the protocol-obsessed, impassive robot.</p><p>“Thank you for coming to get us, sir,” Fitz says to Coulson gratefully, once there’s hot food in his belly and he’s had the chance to shower and change into fresh clothes.</p><p>“We take care of our own,” Coulson replies smoothly, making Skye seethe quietly. He wouldn’t have known that Fitz and Ward needed to be rescued without her, and as far as she’s aware, he’s still planning on disciplining her for the hack required to get the mission information. “Well done, Agent Fitz, on the successful operation.” His eyes flicker to the side, skimming over Skye before landing on Jemma, who is dancing on her feet, desperate to talk to her partner. “I’ll leave you in Simmons’ capable hands for your post-op physical.”</p><p>She decides to tail Fitzsimmons down to the lab, knowing that the moment she and Coulson end up alone, he’s going to demand they talk. She’s still mortified that she quaked him in the middle of her fit of anger earlier at the Hub, and worried she might lose her temper and do it again. Because if she does, that might be it - he might decide she’s too volatile and dangerous to be on the team. Knowing that Fitz and Jemma will want privacy to talk, she holes herself up in her corner of the lab, playing a stupid game on her phone. She’s not hiding from Coulson, she convinces herself, she’s giving herself time to unwind and process the day. Trying to figure out what she’ll say to him when she does talk to him.</p><p>After a while, though, even the lab feels claustrophobic, especially once Ward comes down for his post-op physical as well. She needs some peace and quiet, to rest and think. There’s no better place for that than the backseat of the SUV.</p><p>On her way out of the lab, Ward snags the back of her jacket. “Hey,” he greets her. “May told me it was you who found out there wasn’t an extraction plan for us, and arranged for the team to step in. Thank you.”</p><p>She stares at him in disbelief. “‘Thank you’?” she repeats, shocked that he’s actually showing her gratitude for breaking the rules.</p><p>Ward rolls his eyes, but continues seriously, “You know I don’t approve at all of the hacktivism stuff, but… you made a good call today, followed your gut when it told you something was wrong. Those sorts of instincts are desirable in SHIELD agents.”</p><p>“Thanks,” she cracks a weak smile. “But, uh, Coulson doesn’t see it that way.”</p><p>“If he punishes you for saving mine and Ward’s lives, then I’m sayin’ something,” Fitz pipes up, from where he’s leaning against a lab bench with his arm touching Jemma’s. “It’s bloody unfair.”</p><p>“Agreed,” Jemma says vehemently. “We’ll all say something, Skye. Besides, I’m the one who got us in the most trouble, by shooting Agent Sitwell. We’ll split whatever punishment Coulson gives you.”</p><p>“I don’t think it works like that, Jem, but thank you.” Her mouth stretches in a yawn. “I’m beat, probably gonna take a nap in the SUV. Um, if Coulson comes down here searching for me…” she trails off, embarrassed to ask them to divert him away from her.</p><p>“We haven’t seen you,” Ward replies.</p><p>The back of the SUV is dark and cold when Skye clambers in, and she’s surprised to find the fluffy blanket she dragged in here the last instance she needed time alone folded carefully and stored in the footwell. Shaking it out, she drags it over her lap and splays herself across the backseats, head pillowed under a bunched portion of her blanket. The background noise of the plane’s vibrations gradually fades away. She’s left experiencing only her own vibrations reflecting around the inside of the SUV and bouncing back at her. She wonders briefly whether this is anything like a sensory deprivation tank, cutting her off from the rest of the world. It’s quiet and secure, giving her powers a break from constant vibration processing, so it’s enough for her, whatever it’s like.</p><p>She gets about twenty minutes of rest before the passenger side front door swings open. The person’s vibrations sweep over her like a gentle cool breeze washing up from the sea; Skye relaxes and turns her head minutely to blink blearily at May as the specialist slides into her seat before silently closing the door behind her.</p><p>“Coulson is acting like a kicked puppy right now,” May murmurs, her voice steady and hushed. “You should speak to him.”</p><p>She huffs unhappily. She needs to remember that May is Coulson’s friend first. “Maybe I don’t want to.” It comes out rather sulkily, like she’s a disgruntled kid more than an adult with broken faith.</p><p>“Oh, so you’re in here to avoid him and pout.”</p><p>“I’m not <i>pouting</i>. And I’m not avoiding,” she denies. “I’m tired and taking a nap.”</p><p>“If you were napping, you would be in your bunk. You’re here because you’re trying to stay away from Coulson.” May doesn’t pull any punches. She asks her flatly, “Do you want a new SO?”</p><p>“I don’t know,” Skye replies in a stiff voice. After a moment’s contemplation, trying to imagine her life on the BUS without Coulson as her mentor, she softens and murmurs, “No.”</p><p>Fortunately, she doesn’t have to explain much more, because May seems to understand her conflict. “Missions having no extraction plans are incredibly rare for SHIELD. Coulson and I have both participated in hundreds of ops, and the only ones that have had no extraction plans are the ones involving Romanoff and Barton.” When Skye tilts her head in confusion, a small smirk tugs at May’s lips. “You know them as Black Widow and Hawkeye. But they know going into missions that they’re on their own.” She turns her entire torso so she can properly face Skye, her expression and voice painfully honest as she states, “Coulson didn’t know there wasn’t an extraction plan for Fitz and Ward because it was unfathomable to think there wouldn’t be.”</p><p>“Did <i>you</i> know there wasn’t an extraction plan?” It suddenly dawns on her that May is the same level as Coulson.</p><p>“No. I assumed like Coulson that there would be. So maybe I’m just as bad as him. Perhaps even worse, because I suspected something was off when Hand refused to tell us details about the extraction, but didn’t question it. You dug into the file before I got the chance to myself. Coulson never suspected anything was wrong; he feels even more betrayed by SHIELD than you do.”</p><p>Skye squeezes her hands into fists around her blanket, her knuckles turning white. “I can’t trust SHIELD.”</p><p>“I know.”</p><p>“No, you don’t,” she whispers, gaze flitting out of the window. Anxiety pools in the pit of her stomach, making her feel sick. “There are things about me, things in my past, that you don’t know about,” she chokes out.</p><p>May gives a sharp nod. “And if you haven’t told me yet, then I don’t need to know them. But I know enough. I notice things.” And isn’t that ominous to hear. Skye returns her gaze to the specialist, filled with wariness. May turns back around and stares straight ahead out of the windshield as she begins to list, “The way you tiptoe around us on the plane because you have something to hide. Looking over your shoulder every few seconds when we’re in the Hub, as if you’re expecting to be attacked. Purposefully avoiding being caught on CCTV, using us as shields to conceal yourself in public places. Flinching when somebody approaches you from behind too quietly. Comfortable in the lab until Simmons gets her medical equipment out. The long sleeves you wear to hide the scars on your arms.” She pauses and then adds gently, her voice a balm to the harsh truths she’s sprouting, “Ward and the others call it paranoia, and think it’s because of your past as a hacktivist. But I recognize fear born from trauma when I see it.”</p><p>“You’ve never said anything before,” Skye says, shocked by everything she’s observed. Does she really have that many tells? She seriously thought that she’s good at hiding all of her PTSD and anxiety ticks. Nobody’s noticed them in the past.</p><p>“Not to you,” May replies. “I mentioned it to Coulson. I was concerned about the nature of your trauma and your personal triggers.”</p><p>“You talk to Coulson about me?” It shouldn’t surprise her, but given how May is a woman of very little words, it makes it somewhat more significant.</p><p>“All the time. I first spoke to Coulson after I realized you were deliberately downplaying your fighting skills when Ward was training you, to avoid sparring with him. I figured you’d been in an abusive situation before as a child or a teenager where you’d learned to fear those of larger and stronger stature than you - or fear men in general. That’s why I took over your training. And I don’t know whether or not my assumptions are true, but I do know that you’ve never pulled your punches on the mats with me.”</p><p>Skye frowns. “I remember you telling me that a lot of women feel uncomfortable being trained by men bigger and stronger than them.”</p><p>“They do,” May nods.</p><p>“I wasn’t scared of Ward,” she admits. “I wanted you all to underestimate me.”</p><p>May eyes her shrewdly. “I have the feeling that we’re still underestimating you. There aren’t many people who could use level 5 restricted access to trick SHIELD’s systems and then hack a level 8 mainframe in less than three minutes. When Maria hears, she’ll be impressed. Probably laugh her ass off at Coulson for finding a rookie who’s more of a handful than Stark.”</p><p>“Who’s this Maria person?” Skye asks, bemused. “Both you <i>and</i> Coulson have name-dropped her in the last 24 hours. Coulson said she’s the one who arranged the level 5 access for me last minute. Is she head of the Hub or something?”</p><p>At this line of questioning, May’s expression grows amused and smug. “Maria happens to be one of mine and Coulson’s closest and oldest friends. She attended the Communications Academy with Coulson, and I met her later in the Comm Ops program. Coulson went the direction of field agent, I became a specialist… Maria aimed higher. Commander Maria Hill… better known as the Deputy Director of SHIELD.”</p><p>Skye gapes at her. Director Fury, Deputy Director Hill… how many more people high up in the ranks of SHIELD are Coulson and May friends with? It should intimidate her. Instead, it makes her feel appreciative that they’re bothering to waste their time on training and mentoring her - and it’s actually reassuring to think that if things go South for her, and her father or Spectre catch up to her, May and Coulson might be able to call in favors from incredibly powerful people to protect her, if need be.</p><p>She’s so distracted by her thoughts that Skye doesn’t realize the vehicle has been approached until she hears a knock on the window of the door near her feet. Instinctively, she pulls her legs in and curls up in a protective ball, vibrations whirring in case she needs to quake. When she realizes who it is waiting for her to give the go-ahead to enter the car, she yanks the blanket up over her head, wanting nothing more than to disappear.</p><p>“I’ll leave you two to have your discussion,” May says quietly. “Go easy on him, Skye.”</p><p>She steps out of the car, slamming the door shut behind her loudly, the opposite of how she closed it when she climbed in. Skye hears her muffled voice as she speaks with Coulson for a minute, although the insulation of the SUV mutes their conversation to the point where she can’t understand it, annoyingly. She pulls the blanket back down, letting her hair hang in front of her face instead.</p><p>When the back door near her feet is finally pulled open, she hunches in on herself and peers at Coulson accusingly, feeling very much like a cornered wild animal he’s going to try (and fail) to coax into his arms. His expression is bleak and tired, but there’s an air of forbearance about his relaxed, non-threatening body language that convinces her to lower her guard. Her knees sink down from her chest and she positions her legs so they’re tucked beneath her instead.</p><p>Coulson runs his eyes over her scrutinizingly. “Are you going to quake me again if I ask if we can talk?” he asks measuredly.</p><p>Squashing down her embarrassment at having lost her cool back in the Hub, Skye raises her chin slightly in defiance. “Depends on what you want to talk about.”</p><p>“I think we should clear the air,” he declares.</p><p>There’s no point arguing him on this. He seems determined to talk. Sighing, she concedes, “Okay. Should we go to your office?”</p><p>“We can stay here if it will make you more comfortable,” Coulson offers.</p><p>She doesn’t want to taint this space, lest their conversation sour. “No… can we go to the kitchen instead? I’m starving,” she admits.</p><p>Coulson looks relieved, as if her confessing to being hungry reassures him somehow. “Sure. I’ll make you grilled cheese, how about that?”</p><p>Once they’ve made their way to the kitchen, Skye sits at the dining table, watching as her SO constructs and then fries her up a grilled cheese sandwich made of sourdough and three different kinds of cheese. She curls her fingers around a glass of cold apple juice from the fridge while she waits, the condensation cooling the tips of her fingers. The silence that settles between them is nowhere near as comfortable as it usually is, feeling stifling and rife with tension. Skye doesn’t want to be the person who talks first, and apparently, neither does Coulson.</p><p>Eyeing the second glass of juice that Coulson has set on the table for himself, Skye reaches out and wets her forefinger, running it around the glass’ rim. She doesn’t even have to use her powers to make the glass begin to vibrate, tuning into its resonant frequency, but changing the pitch to make it low due to the liquid inside. Her own glass, which is half empty compared to Coulson’s, rings at a higher, more pleasant pitch. She smiles wistfully. When Skye was fifteen and just beginning to learn how to control her powers, she used to try and match resonant frequencies of glasses of water, in an attempt to gain better command over her abilities’ intensities.</p><p>She’s graduated to making both of the glasses vibrate and ring with music without needing her hands, just sitting back and focusing her powers on them, when Coulson finishes making the grilled cheese for her. He doesn’t interrupt her; he stands and observes with a look of wonder, until Skye becomes self-conscious and stops.</p><p>“You have great control over your powers,” he notes, setting her plate in front of her.</p><p>“When I’m not emotional, yeah,” she shrugs.</p><p>Rolling his glass of juice between his palms, Coulson nods thoughtfully. “I must have seriously upset you to make you quake me at the Hub, then,” he says gravely. “And curse at me. I’ve never heard you swear before.”</p><p>“I swear, just not in front of authority figures,” she says defensively, heat flushing her face. “And yeah, I was pissed at you, but can you really blame me?”</p><p>“No,” he replies. “I deserved your anger. I was being an asshole.”</p><p>She’s sure she has to look stunned, because she’s honestly not expecting him to say something like that. “Maybe not as big as an asshole as I was making you out to be,” Skye mutters. “I kinda overreacted. May explained a little bit. You didn’t know there wasn’t an extraction plan for Fitz and Ward. You assumed that there would be, because why would you assume otherwise?”</p><p>“I should have checked,” he says regretfully. “I haven’t worked very much with Hand before, but was warned that she can be ruthless. I should have realized something was wrong when she didn’t give us any details of how extraction would play out.” He pauses and then adds, “I do care about Ward and Fitz. I know the way I initially reacted to your reveal of the lack of extraction plan suggested that I don’t, but I was horrified. I confronted Hand about it. Her excuses were awful.”</p><p>Skye swallows. “What did she say?”</p><p>“That I have to trust the system.”</p><p>God, she hates that stupid, <i>stupid</i> phrase. “I’m gonna quake the next SHIELD agent who says those three words to me in the face,” she groans.</p><p>Coulson laughs. “I feel the same way, truthfully.” Sobering, he continues, “I’m sorry I kept shutting you down when you were expressing merited concerns. You have every right to distrust SHIELD, and I undermined that today. And it turns out you were right to distrust us. Your actions going against the system I was insisting you blindly trust saved Fitz and Ward. They’re alive thanks to you. You have fantastic instincts, Skye, and I’m beginning to realize that I should be listening to your gut feelings more often.”</p><p>“Not always, though. Because sometimes I am just being a paranoid conspiracy nut.”</p><p>“Not always,” he agrees with a chuckle.</p><p>“So… I’m guessing this thing is staying on?” She raises her leg underneath the table so her foot sticks out and she wiggles it to show where the tech blocking band is secured around her ankle.</p><p>He levels her with an unimpressed look.</p><p>“Yeah, I thought so.”</p><p>“It stays on, but I’m not going to write up a misconduct report,” Coulson responds. “And no disciplinary action. I feel like the team would revolt if I punished you. So… no apologies necessary from you. Just an agreement that next time you have concerns, you’ll come to me and I’ll actually listen to you.”</p><p>“I am sorry about quaking you, though,” she apologizes awkwardly. “And for swearing. That was going too far. And looking back at our argument, it wasn’t really… an argument. It was just me shouting at you. So I’m sorry I didn’t let you say your piece.”</p><p>He shakes his head. “I didn’t have a piece to say. And I’d much rather you express your anger outwardly at me than bottle it up until you explode with resentment - and take the BUS down mid-air or something. The quake wasn’t that bad. Actually, it knocked some sense into me.”</p><p>She quirks an eyebrow. “It did, huh?”</p><p>Coulson flattens his hands on the tabletop, regarding her seriously. “I want to submit paperwork to make you an official field asset. Still a consultant, not an actual employee of SHIELD, I know you don’t want that -” he hastily says, seeing her incredulous reaction, “- But I’m wasting your talents having you holed up in the lab with Fitzsimmons, or running comms and hacks from command. May’s told me you’ve still got a ways to go, but you’re on par with a level 4 or 5 field agent when it comes to hand-to-hand combat and firearms. That’s not even getting started on your powers.”</p><p>“You want me to use my powers out in the field?” she asks dubiously.</p><p>“Only in emergencies,” Coulson assures her. “<i>Extreme</i> emergencies. But you can’t deny that you’re itching to get some of the action.”</p><p>“It has been annoying being benched,” she admits. “But I still don’t want the others to know about me yet.”</p><p>“Simmons is getting close,” he tells her warningly. “Just after you broke your arms, she asked me for access to SHIELD’s Indexed physiological data archive. Claimed it was so she could search for Chan Ho Yin, the pyrokinetic’s data to help write her mission report, but I could tell it was so she could compare your medical profile with those of metahumans.”</p><p>Skye stares at him with wide, frightened eyes. “What did you do?”</p><p>“Denied full access, then found Chan Ho Yin’s data myself and sent it to her. She was disappointed. Sooner or later, her curiosity is going to get the better of her and she’s going to steal a DNA sample from your bunk or a glass you leave lying around, so she can analyze it.”</p><p>Skye doesn’t know much about her altered DNA, but she knows enough from having eavesdropped on conversations between the geneticists, when she was being held against her will in the Spectre facility. If Jemma sequences her DNA, she’ll find thousands of unidentifiable, non-human macromolecules functioning as epigenetic marks, and also that her genome contains entirely new functional genes that have been “woken up” in her non-coding DNA, that have never been charted before.</p><p>“Simmons is bound by doctor-patient confidentiality like any other medically trained scientist,” Coulson says, trying to keep his voice casual. “If you’re not ready for the rest of the team to know, you could always tell her and ask her to keep it private.”</p><p>“No, that wouldn’t be fair to Jemma,” Skye murmurs. “Making her keep secrets from Fitz would tear her apart. And she’s <i>terrible</i> at lying.”</p><p>Coulson grimaces. “I really don’t want to pressure you, Skye, but the longer you keep this secret from the team, the harder it’s going to be to tell them, and the angrier they’ll most likely be.”</p><p>“I just want to pick the right moment.” It’s an empty excuse, and she knows it. Coulson is right; every day that passes without the team knowing about her past and her powers, it becomes more and more difficult for her to bring herself to come clean. She’s a coward, too scared that it will change the way they look at her, and she’ll no longer be welcome. “In the next month,” she decides. “I’ll tell them within the next four weeks.”</p><p>Coulson stares across the table at her with a quirked eyebrow. Even as she says it, Skye doesn’t know if she believes herself.</p><p>“I’ll help if you need me too,” he says.</p><p>“Thanks. It’s going to be hard enough explaining everything when I only have a couple of the puzzle pieces,” she sighs frustratedly.</p><p>“Well, maybe I can provide you with another,” Coulson says. She peers over at him curiously. “When you hacked into the level 8 mainframe, you could have used the little time you had to search for that redacted file from your childhood, but instead you focused on Ward and Fitz. It was selfless of you, putting them first, but I felt bad knowing you lost your opportunity. So I went searching myself. I found the file - the unredacted version.” Her jaw drops in shock and excitement. “A lot of the information that was blacked out on your version just doesn’t exist, Skye. It’s been wiped completely. But there was enough for me to piece some information together.”</p><p>“Tell me!” she demands.</p><p>“You’ve always thought that the foster system protocol was put in place after you were left at St Agnes’, right?” he checks. When she nods, he leans back and informs her gravely, “Well, it wasn’t. The document was stamped and filed 10 days before the day you arrived at the orphanage… meaning that it’s likely that it was a SHIELD agent who dropped you off there. In fact, we know it was.”</p><p>“A SHIELD agent?” she repeats in a whisper. Finally. Finally, an answer to one of her thousands of questions. “Why? <i>WHO?</i> What does that mean? It - can’t have been my father so my - was it my mom? My mom is a SHIELD agent?”</p><p>“The agent who signed the forms had their name wiped from the records, so they’re unidentified. We’re not sure if it was your mother. You say your father is insane -”</p><p>“He puts the mad in mad scientist, yeah -”</p><p>“So it’s possible this agent might have rescued you from him. They might have just found you on a doorstep. What I do know for sure is that the foster system protocol they set up on you was the first of its kind, and it was meant to protect you… to prevent you from being found. From your father, but maybe from other forces as well.”</p><p>“This agent, whoever she is, she might know what I am,” Skye realizes dazedly. “She might understand why I can do what I do.”</p><p>“I put in a request for access for other files that might have related material, but right now, that’s all I have. I’m sorry,” he apologizes.</p><p>Shaking her head, Skye flings herself out from behind the table and throws herself into his arms, hugging him tightly. “Sorry? <i>Thank you</i>.”</p><p>And Coulson wraps his arms around her and hugs her back.</p>
<hr/><p>The next week, they head to London to clean up the mess Thor has left behind in Greenwich after battling and defeating the invading Dark Elves. It opens up a discussion about aliens and humanoid beings from other worlds, and for a fleeting second, Skye wonders if there’s a chance that the non-human DNA in her genome could possibly come from an alien. Coulson humors her and answers her hundreds of questions about Asgardians, probably because he can tell that she’s trying to make fetch happen; after all, being part Asgardian might explain her superpowers. She then decides, after seeing how intense and crazy the Norse paganist cult is, that maybe she doesn’t want to be part Asgardian.</p><p>They pick up another SHIELD consultant, although Elliot Randolph is an expert on Norse Mythology and not computer science or cybersecurity like her. He reveals that the object that the paganists stole from inside a tree is an Asgardian artifact - something called a Berserker staff, that’s been split into three parts. Skye’s paired with Ward when they search underground catacombs in Seville to search for the next piece of the staff, trying to get their hands on it before the cult. But something goes wrong. Randolph attempts to steal it, and when Ward attempts to grab it off him, he freaks out. Properly and actually freaks out, like he’s having a panic attack.</p><p>Afterwards, when they’re back on the plane and the specialist is getting checked out by Jemma, Ward becomes so aggressive with them that he’s almost <i>feral</i>. She tries to reach and connect with him emotionally after he reveals that he suffered a flashback, but it makes it worse.</p><p>“Get the hell out of my face, Skye,” he snarls, towering over her. His eyes are almost black with fury, and she gulps nervously when she sees no hint of humanity in them. “God, don’t you ever get tired of hearing your own voice? You’re <i>insufferable</i>. You’re so fucking useless on this team that you’re more like Coulson’s <i>pet</i> rather than our consultant.”</p><p>She freezes, staring at him in astonishment, trembling all over. For the first time in a long time, Skye finds herself to be legitimately petrified of him.</p><p>“Ward, stop,” Fitz says, his voice firm. He steps in front of her protectively, while Jemma gently draws Skye away from the conflict. “Scaring Skye is not gonna be of any help here. She’s just trying to assist Simmons and me in diagnosing what’s wrong with you, okay?”</p><p>“Why don’t you diagnose what’s wrong with <i>her!</i>” he seethes, glaring at her over the engineer’s shoulder. She cringes and turns her face into Jemma’s shoulder as the biochemist hugs her, rubbing her back soothingly. “I have to walk on fucking eggshells around her all the time because <i>poor messed up baby Skye</i> can’t handle somebody raising their voice at her without crying or running away to hide like a toddler.”</p><p>“We’ve talked about this, Ward,” Jemma tries, shaken by his anger.</p><p>“I don’t understand how the hell you put up with her,” Ward spits. His vibrations are alarmingly hostile - in fact, they don’t read like his normal vibrations at <i>all</i>. It’s almost as if touching that staff has transformed him into a completely different person. “She’s constantly lying to us, keeping secrets. Coulson lets her because she’s the favorite kid. She could be a freak of an alien and we would be none the wiser!”</p><p>Blood drains from her face until she’s ashen.</p><p>“What you’re experiencing, feeling, it’s just chemistry, Ward,” Jemma says, in a forcibly calm voice. “Spikes in adrenocorticotropic hormone, caused by biological stress. This aggression is being triggered by a surge of adrenaline and cortisol, which can create a massive -”</p><p>“Stop talking and <i>fix it!</i>” he roars.</p><p>“I can’t. All I can do is relieve the symptoms. I'm going to give you 10cc’s of benzodiazepine.”</p><p>Ward growls and grabs a beaker, throwing it to the ground and smashing the shards of glass beneath his shoe. Skye jumps and clutches desperately at Jemma. Vibrations bubble up inside of her, ready for her to quake Ward away in case he openly attacks any of them. Damn keeping her powers secret if it means she can’t protect the people she cares about.</p><p>“I’m <i>not</i> taking a sedative,” he shouts.</p><p>“Be reasonable, look at how you’re behaving!” Fitz begs.</p><p>Ward slowly leans into the engineer’s face, his body language incredibly threatening. Skye readies her hand at her side, to thrust it out and knock the specialist down if he so much as twitches in Fitz’s direction. “If I'm sedated and we cross paths with those juiced freaks, the ones who flip cars and smash people up, are you gonna take them on? Keep us safe? Or am I gonna have to save Simmons' ass... again?”</p><p>He storms off. It’s only once the lab doors snick shut behind him that the three of them relax. Skye exhales with a shudder and runs her hand through her hair, collapsing onto the stool at her workstation.</p><p>“That was just a biochemical reaction. He didn't mean all that,” Jemma says in a falsely optimistic tone. “Once the hormonal imbalances in his brain and adrenal cortex level out, he’ll be back to normal and utterly mortified he acted like that.”</p><p>“You say he didn’t mean it, but it came from somewhere,” Skye replies, feeling hollow. </p><p>“Don’t listen to him, Skye,” Fitz reassures her. “Simmons is right, it’s just his brain chemistry scrambled up. He doesn’t actually believe any of it, he was just sayin’ it to try to scare you.”</p><p>She doesn’t and can’t believe it. The sheer resentment she heard in Ward’s voice aimed towards her, refuses to let her believe he drew those words out of nothing, just to be pointlessly cruel. “It is true? Do you all walk on eggshells around me?”</p><p>“Only as much as we walk on eggshells around the others,” Jemma tells her kindly. “We avoid talking about the Battle of New York in front of Coulson, in case it brings up bad memories, and we make sure we never ask May about the missions she was on before she left Ops for Admin back in 2009.” The biochemist pats her shoulder. “It’ll all be fine, I promise.”</p><p>They get on with the mission. It turns out that Randolph is actually an ancient Asgardian warrior who went AWOL and has been hiding living on Earth ever since. Jemma and Fitz are both fascinated by his physiology; when Jemma excitedly rambles about how she would love to cut him open a little bit to get tissue samples and body fluids, Skye can’t help but respond harshly that they could just ask the dude. It’s unsettling for her to hear the two scientists she considers her pseudo-siblings talk so easily about dissecting somebody.</p><p>She wants to ask Coulson if she could get a minute or two with Randolph alone, thinking that he might possibly know what she is, but she never gets the chance, as the Asgardian reveals the location of the last piece of the Berserker staff. As both Ward and May wield it, powering through their most traumatic memories to defeat the paganists, Skye can’t help but wonder what she would see and feel if she held the staff. If it’s anything like what Ward experiences - uncontrollable, incomprehensible <i>rage</i> - then she reckons it’s a good thing she doesn’t touch it. Unleashing her quakes could bring the entire church down on top of them. She’s never measured how powerful she truly is, and she doesn’t want to find out.</p><p>She very nearly opens up to Ward in the hotel bar after he apologizes for lashing out at her in the lab. He tells her that he seriously doesn’t mind her keeping a few secrets to herself, given that all field agents and specialists have their own personal lives they barely ever talk about. In the end, she doesn’t say anything.</p><p>“I really hate aliens,” Ward grumbles, throwing back a shot of whiskey. “And their freaky alien weapons and shit. We can’t trust anything that’s not human. Always ends badly.”</p><p>Skye nods, her heart sinking.</p><p>No, she’s not telling the team about her powers anytime in the next week or so. Their experiences with non-humans lately have only been miserable, and dangerous.</p><p>Everything is too raw.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Next update: 8th Nov</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter 5</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>hey guys! first of all... what a week, huh? this chapter might not be particularly well edited just because i was drinking to celebrate. secondly, i am amazed and stunned at the support this fic has been getting! if somebody had told me when i posted the first chapter that this fic would have over 100 subscribers by the time the 4th chapter was posted, i would have laughed. but alas, it is my new reality.</p>
<p>so honestly, all i can say is thank you, so much, all of you for reading and commenting and being so supportive x</p>
<p>if anybody is at all interested, i've actually started a tumblr - <a href="https://vulpeculaanser.tumblr.com/">vulpeculaanser.tumblr.com</a> - where i'll probably be posting sneak peeks on the sundays between updates, and asks are turned on (incl. anon) if you have any questions about the fic</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They don’t even get a single day’s break before they’re assigned another mission. At least Skye and Fitzsimmons get to enjoy the hotel’s continental breakfast before Coulson rolls up to ruin the parade, telling them they need to get back to the BUS. Both of the scientists need to shower and pack, but as Skye has got into the habit of waking up for 5am tai chi, she’s already washed and thrown all her stuff into her duffel.</p>
<p>The night in the hotel was luxurious, but she knows that it’s an opportunity that they won’t get very often; spies more commonly hole up in dingy, cash-paid, by-the-hour motels, as it’s more discreet than hotels you have to hand over credit cards for. Skye can’t remember the last time she slept in a double bed, let alone in a hotel. She thinks the last time when she was eighteen and she broke in through the employee back entrance of a hotel in Detroit, because she was being chased by a group of gangbangers… but she supposes that doesn’t count, because she was chased out at 3am the next morning.</p>
<p>Fitzsimmons both appear horrified when she tells them this before they head up to their rooms. The two of them had a drastically different upbringing to her… the biggest difference being that they were actually <i>raised</i> by people, while Skye basically had to raise herself as she was tossed around the foster system. She thinks she’d like to meet Fitz’s mum (not his dad, his cold expression tells her all she needs to know about him) and Jemma’s parents one day, if she gets the chance; they sound like lovely people. Offering to take them to visit St Agnes Orphanage, which was her ‘home’ for the formative years of her life, wouldn’t end well, she suspects. The two scientists probably can’t believe how traumatic her life has been so far - and those are only the parts of it that they’ve heard about. If they knew the truth, they would be a lot more disturbed, she reckons.</p>
<p>When Skye arrives at the plane, none of the rest of the team are there except for Coulson, who invites her into his office for coffee. Not one to turn down a cup of caffeine, she agrees. He has a super fancy coffee machine in there that’s way better than the stuff they have in the communal kitchen, so if he’s going to let her have a cup made from his expensive roasted beans, she’s going to get one.</p>
<p>“So you gonna tell me what the mission’s about, A.C., or are you gonna make me wait for the slowpokes?” she asks brightly.</p>
<p>Coulson slides a mug of coffee onto the cabinet next to her, prepared just how she likes it, black with one sugar, and then passes her a tablet. “Telling you now,” he says, much more morose than she expects. “Because this mission is going to emotionally affect you, and you need to be aware of what precisely you’re getting into.”</p>
<p>Skye frowns at him as he sits on the edge of his desk with his arms crossed a few feet away from her, rather than returning to his seat. She peers down at the data on the tablet. The photo of a young blonde woman by the name of Hannah Hutchins fills the screen. She’s confused for a moment at why her SO is showing her this woman’s profile, but then something catches her eye at the bottom of the screen. She goes still.</p>
<p>“A telekinetic?” she asks quietly.</p>
<p>“We’ve never verified one before. That's why we're going to Batesville ... to conduct an Index asset evaluation and intake. This isn’t like before, with the pyro we dealt with. This is approaching somebody brand new, with uncharted abilities, and registering them with SHIELD as a powered individual. That’s our job.”</p>
<p>She manages to choke out a soft, “Oh,” as she stares down at the tablet. Hannah is smiling cheerfully in her photo, her eyes kind and happy. Now she’s going to be placed on SHIELD’s Index for powered and enhanced people… the Index that Skye <i>should</i> be on, but Coulson has kept her off. She’s always got the impression from him that the Index is worse than a prison sentence. “How does it work?”</p>
<p>He must see the apprehension on her face, because Coulson casts her a reassuring look and explains, “There’s no ambush or immediate arrest, if that’s what you’re thinking. We basically knock on her front door, ask if we can come in to her home, and then talk to her to see if she really does have powers.”</p>
<p>“Well, that process needs a better name ... less I.R.S., more... better,” she replies lamely. “Something less confrontational and scary, like ‘the welcome wagon’.”</p>
<p>Sighing, Coulson reaches out and gives the back of the tablet a forceful shove with his finger, so it topples into her lap and she’s forced to look up, meeting his concerned gaze. “Are you going to be okay with this?” he questions, his voice gentle. “I know this is going to get… personal. It’ll probably upset you - it’s likely to trigger you as well. I don’t want to place you in a precarious position, so I can have you stay on the plane if you’d prefer.”</p>
<p>Skye sets her jaw. If she stays on the plane, then she’ll have no idea how the Indexing process works. No idea how it will work if one day, Coulson Indexes <i>her</i>. And maybe, if she’s there, he’ll be aware of her observing his every move and make sure that Hannah is treated well. “I think I’d honestly prefer being out there with you to see how you do things.”</p>
<p>“You won’t interfere?” he checks.</p>
<p>“Not if I don’t see the need to,” she replies stiffly.</p>
<p>He scrutinizes her for a couple of seconds and then nods. “All right. I want you to pay close attention on this one, Skye. It's an opportunity for you to learn how we at SHIELD deal with someone with newly developing abilities.”</p>
<p>“It's not like I've never done this before,” she mutters. Coulson raises an eyebrow at her, as if to say <i>really?</i> “I don’t just mean me. I know how you found out about me and recruited me was highly unusual. I mean, I found Mike Peterson before you did. Remember how that went?” If her tone comes across as slightly accusing, then that’s a good thing. The way Coulson and his newly formed team handled Mike was pretty much a disaster.</p>
<p>Gathering a file into his arms, Coulson pushes off his desk and walks over to the door, holding it open and inclining his head, to silently tell her to follow him. “This is a chance for you to see how it's done when it's done right.”</p>
<p>Curiosity getting the better of her, Skye questions, “How many people with powers have you encountered?” as she tails behind her SO.</p>
<p>“Me, personally? A handful. There's not that many people on the Index, honestly,” Coulson informs her, leading her down the spiral staircase and through the living quarters. They’re heading down to the lab, where Fitzsimmons should have arrived by now. “And I don’t think many of them have intrinsic powers like you do.”</p>
<p>Skye shakes her head, murmuring under her breath, “They must be terrified when they see the SHIELD trucks roll up. I know I would be.”</p>
<p>Coulson smiles sympathetically before he shrugs, explaining, “Every case is different. Some people are super calm about it all. Some try and run, some straight-up attack. A couple even appear in complete denial that there's anything unusual about them.” Skye wonders where she fits into there, then, considering that she was confrontational with him for a moment when he aimed his gun at her and she quaked it out of his hand, but then willingly climbed into Lola and joined his team. “It's a delicate process, and from all reports, this sounds like a particularly sensitive situation.” </p>
<p>Swiping through the information in Hannah’s files, Skye reads it over swiftly. “‘Particle accelerator explosion likely cause.’ Hannah was one of the quality-control engineers. Was it her fault?” she asks.</p>
<p>“The town blames her. Four technicians died in that blast on her watch.”</p>
<p>“That's terrible... all those families.”</p>
<p>Coulson nods grimly. “Small church community... they're pretty rattled.”</p>
<p>“She must be, too. Friends, co-workers dead, and on top of all that, she might have some crazy power she can't understand or control,” Skye sympathizes, her voice quiet and contemplative. She remembers the first time she found out about her powers, the entire lab shaking around her as she screamed while the scientists drained her of spinal fluid and blood, and shudders. “Nothing is worse than that. It can make you seriously depressed. She seems like a really sweet lady from her profile. We’ll have to be gentle with her, in case she’s hurting herself.”</p>
<p>Her SO stops abruptly in place, glancing back at her with a startled expression. “Hurting herself?” he repeats. “Why would you think that?”</p>
<p>Skye shoots him an incredulous look. “Because if she thinks she’s guilty of hurting other people, she might be hurting herself as punishment for that, and to try and stop herself from doing it again?” she says slowly. Surely Coulson has to know about the guilt powered people with strong moral compasses feel when they accidentally hurt innocents, if he’s met some before?</p>
<p>Coulson’s eyes dart down from her face to her forearms, dark with pain. “Is that what you did?” he asks in a low voice.</p>
<p>She knows he doesn’t mean the bruising or microfractures. He means the dozens of fine white line scars that cover both of her forearms, but are concentrated on her left. They tell the story of some of the darkest few months of her life that occurred after she escaped the Spectre facility.</p>
<p>Skye hates talking about it. But as her SO, Coulson probably needs to know, just in case she slips into a period of depression again. “Yeah,” she answers softly. “It became my coping mechanism for a while, because I felt like a stranger in my own body with the new powers taking over my life. I couldn’t control the earthquakes, I was having constant flashbacks and nightmares. Cutting helped me feel like my own person again… grounded me in the present with the pain. It got pretty bad. Miles helped me stop. But I wouldn’t have, if he hadn’t intervened. We might need to do the same thing with Hannah. Because even if she’s not physically hurting herself, she’s got to be tormenting herself mentally.” </p>
<p>“I’m sorry that happened to you, Skye,” he says, his expression drawn and sad. “I’m glad Miles was there to support you. You weren’t kidding when you told me he was a good friend.”</p>
<p>“That’s what Hannah needs right now: support,” she insists. Shouldering past him, she leads him down to the cargo bay. “She doesn’t need overenthusiastic, trigger-happy SHIELD agents… she needs good people who want to help her.”</p>
<p>“Then it’s a good thing that my team meets those requirements,” Coulson smiles. Upon hearing his voice, Fitzsimmons rush out from the lab. “Ah, there you two are. Did you read the mission briefs I left out on the bench for you?”</p>
<p>Jemma nods eagerly. “Yes, sir, and we took the liberty of contacting the Department of Energy to try and gain access to the particle acceleration lab -”</p>
<p>“- but they declared that it’s too dangerous to enter, with hazardous materials everywhere, to the point where even hazmat suits aren’t safe -” Fitz continues her sentence.</p>
<p>“- but the good news is, we still think we can retrieve the disaster-event data from the instruments using the DWARFs,” Jemma finishes with a pleased grin.</p>
<p>Fitz nods along with her, adding, “We'll determine the cause and see if there's any correlation between telekinesis spontaneously forming and a particle accelerator exploding.”</p>
<p>“Well, it does use giant magnets to fire billions of subatomic particles into their anti-particles at the speed of light to create miniature big bangs, so... seems like a good place to start,” Coulson muses. When all three of them blink at him in surprise, he smirks and says with an innocent little shrug, “Hey, I read.”</p>
<hr/>
<p>Skye should have known as soon as Coulson requested that she stay in the car when they arrived at Hannah’s house that things were going to go spectacularly wrong. To be fair to him, he only asked her to remain in the SUV because of the angry mob of locals trying to attack the property, being held back by the police; they’re missing the props of torches and pitchforks, but Skye can sense that some of them have concealed weapons. Coulson was concerned that the hostile environment would make her nervous enough to slip into a panic attack, and he was right in the fact that she’s certainly full of nerves.</p>
<p>She watches through the car window as he and Ward approach Hannah and speaks to the distraught woman calmly. Skye has to admit, she’s actually impressed at how Ward seems to be handling things, considering he’s normally the shoot-first-ask-questions-later sort of guy. Things quickly escalate, though, when a furious civilian throws an egg over May’s shoulder and it strikes the door next to Hannah, startling her.</p>
<p>Everything starts to go nuts. The police car parked on the opposite side of the street begins rolling, and then accelerating towards the crowd, with no driver inside of it. People have to dive to the pavement to avoid getting hit, the car smashes through the fence before stopping. Skye’s jaw drops, because while she’s not sure whether or not it’s telekinesis, it’s definitely <i>something</i>.</p>
<p>Coulson, Ward, and May are losing control of the situation fast. Skye has to step in. She hastily exits the car, hoping that maybe she can help Hannah calm down before something wild happens again. Her patience snaps when a hysterical woman who’s only trying to stir up more trouble starts shrieking about attempted murder, and she barks at her to calm down. Making a beeline for where her team members and Hannah are gathered on the porch, she barely manages to reach the gate before she hears the electric crackle of Fitz’s Night Night Gun firing.</p>
<p>Skye stops <i>dead</i> in her tracks, astounded. May just shot Hannah.</p>
<p><i>May</i> just shot her. A woman with powers. Because she was scared and lacking control. The specialist didn’t even blink. Even now, the expression on her face is cold and impassive.</p>
<p>That could have been Skye in Hannah’s position. And May would have probably shot her without a second thought as well.</p>
<p>Her brain just shuts down. She can’t even begin to process what she’s just seen.</p>
<p>“So much for ‘the welcome wagon,” Coulson huffs, kneeling and checking the unconscious Hannah’s breathing. “All right, let’s get her into the car so we can transport her back to the BUS, get her settled safely in the Cage. Ward, take her please?” He steps back as the specialist heaves the woman up into his arms bridal style to carry her over to the SUV. Coulson observes the transfer, which is how his gaze ends up crossing over to Skye. The bewilderment on his face is telling of the fact that he didn’t realize she got out of the car to watch what was happening. “Skye?”</p>
<p>She stares at him, her throat dry as she breaks out into a cold sweat of extreme anxiety. He seems to immediately understand; he’s at her side in less than an instant, taking her pulse. Skye knows that it’s fast - <i>too</i> fast, inhumanly fast, thrumming like a hummingbird’s wings. Their codeword ‘lighthouse’ doesn’t encompass enough to accurately describe to Coulson the overwhelming, head-splitting panic that’s tearing through her body right now.</p>
<p>“I know,” he says in a muted, disquieted voice. “I know, I know. I’m sorry. But she’s just sedated, she’s not injured. Now we can make sure that she’s handled safely.”</p>
<p>“<i>Handled</i>,” Skye croaks feebly. “Like she’s not even a <i>person</i>.”</p>
<p>Coulson cups her face, bending his head to meet her eyes fiercely. “She is a person, and we are going to take care of her, to ensure she not only doesn’t accidentally hurt anybody else, but also to ensure she doesn’t hurt herself. Okay?” She forces herself to nod weakly. He nods back and hugs her. It barely lasts a couple of seconds, because they have people including May watching them, but it’s still an ounce of comfort, when she didn’t expect any. “Okay.”</p>
<p>It’s not okay.</p>
<p>She can tell May keeps glancing over at her, waiting for her to say something. The specialist is probably expecting her to snark or shout at her for what she did.</p>
<p>Skye is silent the entire ride back to the plane.</p>
<hr/>
<p>Coulson knows her well enough to realize that she doesn’t want to talk about her feelings and let down her emotional walls while they’re mid-mission, and that she also doesn’t want to be around May and Ward when she’s feeling so vulnerable. It’s a momentary relief when he tells her to join Fitzsimmons in the lab in case they need any help analyzing the data they’ve harvested using the DWARFs from the exploded particle acceleration lab.</p>
<p>The two young scientists are usually great at distracting her from whatever’s bothering her by giving her something else to focus on, by letting her act as their assistant or assigning her tasks. What they’ve chosen to concentrate on this time, though, is looking at Hannah Hutchin’s bloods, DNA, and vitals, while live footage from inside the Cage of Hannah curled up on a mattress on the floor plays up on the screen. Coulson and May are questioning her, gently prodding for information.</p>
<p>Skye can’t honestly believe that her SO would allow May to be in there with the poor woman given that she <i>shot her</i>. Fitzsimmons are swift to defend the specialist, saying that she only sedated her before the situation was escalating, but it’s not a good enough excuse. She knows from reading all the SHIELD manuals in Coulson’s office that field agents are trained in de-escalation techniques. <i>Shooting</i> somebody, with any type of gun, including a tranquilizer, is always the last resort. For May, it was the first interaction she had with Hannah.</p>
<p>It causes a sick feeling to curdle in Skye’s stomach. Will May be as quick to the trigger when she eventually finds out about her powers?</p>
<p>The fact she doesn’t know how to answer that question, but that the answer is not an instant ‘no’, is what troubles her the most. Especially as Fitzsimmons explain to her the meaning behind May’s chilling monicker ‘The Cavalry’, which everybody at the Academy and SHIELD knows her by, as if she’s a legend. Skye isn’t sure whether or not she believes the outlandish tale they spin about May’s last field mission before she left Ops for Administration, where she gained her infamous nickname; the mental image of May riding into a Bahrain enemy compound on a horse to defeat over one hundred deadly mercenaries with only two pistols and save SHIELD agents being held hostage is just… too ridiculous. Fitzsimmons have to be messing with her.</p>
<p>They get snipey when she touches the particle accelerator hologram, and that’s the last straw for her. Swiping up her laptop, she hurries for the lab doors with her head bowed, done dealing with their weirdness. When she can’t tell the difference between playful teasing and them getting genuinely annoyed with her, that’s when it’s time for her to leave. Whether they mean it in jest or not, Skye isn’t in the right headspace to be able to cope with them playing mind games with her right now.</p>
<p>“Skye, wait, you don’t have to leave,” Jemma says, suddenly sounding incredibly guilty.</p>
<p>“I’m just gonna go and watch from upstairs,” she mutters, not looking either of them in the eye as she slips away and up the staircase.</p>
<p>“Oh, Fitz, now we’ve just upset her even more,” she thinks she hears Jemma sigh.</p>
<p>She watches the rest of Coulson and May’s questioning of Hannah in the briefing room, searching through the woman’s social media accounts and other online activity to try and understand Hannah’s personality and mindset. It’s clear from her desperate denial that she has telekinetic abilities that something else is at play here; Hannah isn’t lying, and Skye thinks that she would probably know if she did have powers. She would be able to feel them building up inside her or being released.</p>
<p>When the poor, despairing woman starts lamenting about God punishing her for the deaths that were caused by the particle accelerator explosion, being abandoned to be haunted by demons, Skye nearly cries. Hannah is a woman of faith who has lost all hope, who feels as if she deserves all the terrible things that have happened to her. Skye doesn’t really believe in God or angels or demons, but she does know a thing or two about crippling self-blame. She manages to pull herself back together by the time the rest of the team traipse into the room for a meeting about figuring out what to do next. </p>
<p>“Delusions of being persecuted aren't uncommon after trauma,” Jemma murmurs sadly, as they all peer down at the holotable screen, which is filled with the CCTV footage from inside the Cage. Hannah has curled herself up into a tight ball against the far wall, as if trying to escape from the world pressing in on her.</p>
<p>Ward nods, his voice pitying as he comments, “She's certainly been through her fair share.”</p>
<p>Keeping her head lowered so her hair hangs like a shield, Skye crosses her arms over her chest in a self-hug. “She's blaming herself,” she says quietly. “It's guilt. And fear.”</p>
<p>“It's all of it,” Coulson agrees, sounding solemn. “She's broken.” Sighing, he slips back into commanding officer mode and orders, “Fitz, Simmons, look over the accident site again. If that tragedy gave her powers, we need to shut them down. If it wasn't her fault, even better, but until then, she's a danger to all of us. Ward, maybe make Miss Hutchins something to eat, it might help her calm down. May, my office.” When his gaze settles on her, he visibly swallows and, gentling his voice, requests, “Skye, I want you to look into the victims of the explosion and the complaints sent to the accelerator lab’s health and safety department. It might help Fitzsimmons with working out exactly what triggered the explosion, and therefore if we’re talking about a dark matter inoculation or something unknown.”</p>
<p>Everybody splits off to do their jobs, although Coulson hangs behind for a brief moment - to check the Cage’s magnetic shields are working optimally, not to give Skye a chance to talk to him. May’s long vanished, heading to his office; she wouldn’t even look in Skye’s direction. When Coulson turns to head up there himself, she tails him.</p>
<p>“‘A danger to all of us’, that’s what you’re going with?” she asks in a low voice.</p>
<p>He slows his stride so she can walk beside him, rather than hurrying behind. It’s something he’s started to do recently, and she thinks she might like it. It puts them on an equal level, cancels out the SO and rookie standings so they can talk without worrying about professionalism. “She’s a grenade with a loose pin, Skye,” he says, casting her an apologetic look. “The littlest thing could shake that pin free and set her off.”</p>
<p>“If Hannah is a grenade, then I’m a freakin’ nuclear bomb, and you don’t call me dangerous,” she mutters.</p>
<p>Coulson heaves a sigh. “You have the <i>potential</i> to be dangerous to people we consider enemies, but you’re not a danger to <i>us</i>, because you have control, and awareness of what you’re doing. As far as we’re concerned, she has none.” When he hears Skye’s unhappy huff, he adds sternly, “You said you wouldn’t interfere.”</p>
<p>“If I remember correctly, I actually said that I wouldn’t, as long as I don’t see the need to. Hannah already feels like a pariah. The way you are treating her, locked up in the Cage, is going to make her feel like a <i>monster</i>,” she says, resolute that <i>somebody</i> should be standing up for the woman. If Hannah does have powers, then she and Skye have to stick together. “Which is only going to make things worse, considering she already thinks that she’s cursed and God is punishing her for a tragic accident.” As they enter Coulson’s office, she continues to insist, “Just let me go in and talk to her, A.C., as a friend.”</p>
<p>May doesn’t look surprised that she’s followed Coulson, and her expression is blank as she stares at Skye. She knows now from hours of training sessions with the specialist that when May turns expressionless and stony, it means she’s unimpressed and irritated. Skye refuses to back down when it comes to this, though - she doesn’t know what May’s problem is, but she’s not going to stand by and let the specialist treat Hannah so callously. She knows from experience that May can be kind and forgiving and warm; in fact, Skye’s beginning to suspect that she might some sort of grudge against powered people, which would be devastating to learn, to be honest.</p>
<p>As Coulson settles into his chair behind his desk, he tells her firmly, “I can't let you do that. It's too risky. She could hurt you.”</p>
<p>“Hannah doesn’t want to hurt <i>anybody</i>. She's nice ... like, overly nice.” Skye begins flicking through the woman’s Facebook and Twitter posts, trying to show them what a compassionate and caring individual she is - who doesn’t deserve to be treated like she’s a threat. “Look! She never misses a birthday post to her friends, runs the youth program at her church, rescues dogs. She's a safety inspector not just because she's detail-oriented, but because she -” </p>
<p>“She genuinely cares,” Coulson realizes.</p>
<p>She nods emphatically. “Right. And someone with that much empathy being responsible for that much loss of life, she's heartbroken. Spouting nonsense about God punishing her for -”</p>
<p>“People believe what they need to believe to justify their actions,” May cuts her off bluntly.</p>
<p>Skye bristles in anger. Hannah’s scared and leaning on her faith as a coping mechanism. May cannot use that excuse for blatant cruelty. “Is that how you justify your shoot-first policy?” May blinks at her, taken back by her vehemence. Even Coulson seems surprised by her snapping at the specialist, when she turns to him and says sarcastically, “At least let me try to repair <i>that</i> damage.”</p>
<p>May takes a step towards her, her gaze sharp. “Until we figure out what's going on with her, she stays in the Cage and you stay away,” she orders.</p>
<p>Spotting how she’s beginning to get riled up, Coulson clears his throat to get her attention. Once she’s fixed on him, he explains smoothly, “It’s for her safety as well as your own. If you go in there and set off her powers somehow, there’s a chance that she could accidentally harm you, yes, but also herself. I know what we’re doing seems extreme -”</p>
<p>“Or downright remorseless -” she hisses under her breath.</p>
<p>“But -” Coulson raises his voice above her own, “We don’t know if she even is telekinetic yet, and if she is, we don’t know what she can do. So we have to treat her as if she’s unstable.”</p>
<p>A clear acrylic box containing one of his collectibles slides off its shelf, cracking and splitting apart on the floor, startling the three of them. The hairs at the back of Skye’s neck tingle, as if her powers are trying to alert her to somebody else in the room, but there’s no-one. And none of them moved.</p>
<p>Coulson bends down, looking puzzled as he collects the pieces up. “Thought that was glued down,” he murmurs. He glances over at Skye as subtly as possible, his eyebrows furrowing in silent question. She shakes her head minutely - it wasn’t her. Coulson ponders on it for a second more before shrugging and straightening up. “You're asking the right questions, Skye, and expressing all the right concerns... but for now, that’s all you get to do, until we understand what’s happening to Miss Hutchins better. I'm sorry.”</p>
<p>With May in the room, watching her with suspicious, narrowed eyes, there’s nothing more that Skye can think to say. She leaves, bitterness and disappointment burning a hole in her heart as wonders why her trainer is being so heartless.</p>
<p>Twenty minutes later, Ward is telling her that Fitzsimmons were messing with her earlier about the May on horseback fighting one hundred guys story. He informs her that it was in fact twenty armed assassins, and she had one pistol, no support. The specialist took them all out. She did it because it was her job, not for the glory.</p>
<p>May’s job is to kill people. Somewhere along the way, as May was teaching her new fighting skills with incredible patience, being gentle and attentive whenever she was injured… Skye forgot that. She can’t seem to consolidate the two Mays she’s experienced in her head. She tries to think about what it will be like getting back on the mats to spar with her, once this is all over, knowing what she does now. Thinking that if May were to ever consider her as a threat, she might put a bullet into her without hesitation. She shakes her head at that. No, she has to believe for the sake of her own sanity that May would hesitate. The two of them have become close, and she likes to believe that May has become fond of her. She would hesitate. Wouldn’t she?</p>
<p>She tries to distract herself from her disturbing thoughts by doing as Coulson asked and looking into the victims and safety complaints. To her interest, one of the victims, Tobias Ford, who worked as a technician, filed three complaints within the past month to Hannah’s department. She barely has time to point this out to Ward when suddenly, the plane’s lights cut out.</p>
<p>The nose of the BUS dips, the fuselage slanting. Skye has to grab onto one of the fixed couches to balance herself, glancing about wildly, because they haven’t hit any turbulence - the vibrations of the engines have just <i>stopped</i>.</p>
<p>“What the hell is happening?” Ward shouts, stumbling and almost crashing into the minibar.</p>
<p>May sprints out of Coulson’s office in alarm. “The plane’s lost power, we’re going down!”</p>
<p>The two specialists rush into the cockpit, buckling in and trying to prepare the plane for an emergency landing using the limited power they have stored in the batteries, engaging the flaps as breaks and lowering the landing gear.</p>
<p>“What can I do?” Skye demands, desperate to help.</p>
<p>“Buckle up, now,” May barks at her. “There’s a decent-sized field ahead I’m going to aim for, but it’s going to be a <i>very</i> rough landing.” </p>
<p>Not if Skye is able to get to the center of the plane and vibrate the entire fuselage at a frequency that will ensure that they lightly bounce when they collide with the ground, rather than crash. Blazing determination streaking through her, Skye wheels around and runs for the living quarters.</p>
<p>“<i>SKYE, GET BACK IN HERE!</i>” May yells, sounding more panicked than she’s ever heard her before. “<i>WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!</i>”</p>
<p>She ignores both May and Ward’s screams of protest, using her powers to find the very center of the plane. Concentrating, Skye gathers all of her strength and courage as she begins directing vibrations through the floor and the hull. The vibrations ripple around her until the whole plane is buzzing at the same frequency. Her head starts to ache with the effort to focus this hard, and it saps her energy rapidly to vibrate something so massive, but she remains determined, refusing to give up.</p>
<p>When they strike the ground, the plane rebounds, like a stone skipping on the surface of a lake. Her vibrational shield is torn away as it’s swallowed up by the earth, seeping her strength. She manages to quickly put up one more buffer to cushion the BUS as it hits the ground again, this time skidding through the field. A minute later, the plane is coming to a gentle stop, intact and barely damaged thanks to her powers softening the landing.</p>
<p>Skye collapses, completely exhausted and drained to the point of her own body not being able to carry its own weight. Her head hits the floor.</p>
<p>The darkness consumes her.</p>
<hr/>
<p>“Skye. Hey, Skye, c’mon, wake up. That’s it. Come back to us, sweetheart.”</p>
<p>When her eyes flutter open, she’s confused by the fact that everything is much darker than usual, thinking her vision is playing up. Catching sight of the amber flashing emergency lights and bright torch beams of the flashlights held by her team members, who are gathered kneeling and sitting around her on the floor, she remembers the power outage. She passed out after using all of her energy to cushion the BUS’ crash landing with her powers.</p>
<p>“Hi,” she mumbles, staring directly up at Coulson’s relieved expression.</p>
<p>“Hi,” he echoes, exhaling with a shaky grin. “Sit up, slowly.”</p>
<p>She nods, and allows him to help her with his hands on her shoulders into a sitting position. Ward shuffles behind her so she can use him to lean up against. Before she can ask if everybody else is okay, Jemma is shoving past an enraged-looking May and exasperated Coulson with her medkit in hand. She throws her arms around Skye in a brief hug, that she’s all too happy to reciprocate. Before long, though, the biochemist is pulling back, hands flitting as she checks her over. She obediently allows Jemma to do whatever tests she wants, once she sees that she’s not wielding any needles.</p>
<p>“Pupil responses normal, pulse elevated but steady,” Jemma sighs. “Skye, do you remember what happened? Did you bump your head?”</p>
<p>“Must have done,” she lies. “Or I just fainted. I feel fine. No dizziness or anything. I’m good to go, guys, I promise. Hey, where’s Fitz?” The engineer is missing.</p>
<p>Coulson pats her arm comfortingly. “We think he’s gone down to storage, and might be trapped there. We’ll find him and make sure he’s okay.”</p>
<p>“Good. Let’s hope he didn’t pass out like me. I bet he’s a big baby when it comes to fainting.”</p>
<p>“What the hell were you doing!?” May finally breaks her silence, snapping at her, eyes afire with fury. “Running off when I told you to buckle in - if we’d struck the ground any harder - you could have been <i>killed!</i> Were you even thinking!?”</p>
<p>Taken back by the combination of anger and worry on May’s face, Skye mumbles, “Had to check Hannah was secure in the Cage.”</p>
<p>“That’s not your job!” the specialist snarls.</p>
<p>“Well, excuse me for caring.”</p>
<p>May’s eyes flash dangerously with rage. “You don’t get to disobey my orders and place your life in peril, and then talk about <i>caring!</i>”</p>
<p>“Okay, let’s all calm down,” Coulson cuts in, shooting May a glare to back down and then focusing back on Skye. “We’ve all got to keep our heads about us.”</p>
<p>“Especially now we’re grounded without power with a telekinetic on board,” Ward mutters. “Did she do this to us, sir?”</p>
<p>“No. We believe Miss Hutchins is actually the victim here,” Coulson reports, handing Skye her own torch and her tablet back. The knowing look he sends her informs her they’re going to have a discussion about this fainting spell of hers as soon as they’re alone. “She’s not telekinetic. Our theories about her powers have been disproven.”</p>
<p>“By who?”</p>
<p>Jemma raises her hand nervously and rushes out, “I saw a ghost. I know it sounds insane, but I noticed something strange about the accident site holographics, and then a man just appeared out of nowhere and attacked me, before disappearing again. He dematerialized before I could get a good look at him.”</p>
<p>May and Ward are blinking at her in disbelief, but Coulson steps in, stating calmly, “We believe this man, whoever he is, has been tormenting Miss Hutchins. He’s the ‘demon’ she’s convinced is haunting her. The Cage might be the only thing protecting her now.”</p>
<p>“Most of the power is being dedicated to the magnetic shields, so she should be safe,” May reports.</p>
<p>“We’ll go inform her,” Ward says, standing.</p>
<p>“Wait,” Skye interrupts. “A.C., can it be me to talk to Hannah? Her life has been turned upside down, and we stuck her in a nightmare box. She thinks she's being punished by God. Can I please be the one to deliver the good news?”</p>
<p>Ward snorts. “That a non-corporeal madman is hunting her?”</p>
<p>She glowers at him. “Again, I think it'd be better coming from anyone else, really.”</p>
<p>Coulson looks conflicted, but finally agrees, “All right. I'll head upstairs, activate the emergency transceiver, and radio HQ. Ward, take a firearm. Escort Simmons to find Fitz, and assess the damage while May runs system diagnostics. Get us up and running.”</p>
<p>They separate again. As Coulson is helping her back to her feet, she senses May’s gaze linger heavily on her for a moment before she vanishes back into the cockpit, and can’t help but feel weird about it. She’s been having rather frenzied thoughts about the specialist over the last couple of hours, calling her cold and heartless in her head, but the way May just reacted to her being knocked out suggests the complete opposite. Will May still feel the same concern for her, though, when she finds out about her powers?</p>
<p>“You didn’t bump your head, did you?” Coulson asks her quietly.</p>
<p>“No,” she admits. “I used my powers to create a vibrational shield around the plane as we crashed to try and minimize the impact. It worked, but it took a lot out of me.”</p>
<p>His worry transforms to complete awe. “You <i>shielded</i> the entire plane? You have to be exhausted. Here.” He reaches into his pants’ pocket, pulling out an energy bar. She stares at him in confusion as he presses it into her hand. When did he start carrying those around with him? “Simmons mentioned that you have a fast metabolism, I was worried we might one day end up in a situation where you would need something like this. Eat it on your way to the Cage.” He eyes her carefully. “The electric lock will have deadbolted when the power went down, but that’s not going to stop you with your powers. You’re going in there, aren’t you?”</p>
<p>“I can neither confirm nor deny that,” she says with a bright grin. She’s definitely going in there.</p>
<p>“Be careful. And lock the door again when you’re done.” He’s resigned to the fact he can’t stop her. “Cameras are down, so you can say whatever you want to say without it being recorded.”</p>
<p>Now <i>that</i> is useful information. Skye does as her SO orders and munches down the energy bar as she crosses the dark plane to the Cage, using her torch to light her way. The bar has little chocolate chips in it, which make her laugh, because she thinks she might have mentioned to Coulson before that she only ever buys and eats energy bars that contain chocolate. Upon approaching the Cage, she knocks lightly.</p>
<p>“Hannah?” she calls.</p>
<p>“Who's there?” comes the tremulous reply.</p>
<p>“My name is Skye. We haven't met yet.” She hesitates and then warns Hannah, “I’m coming in, okay?”</p>
<p>“What? No!” Hannah replies alarmedly, but by then it’s too late. Skye is vibrating the lock open and slipping inside, taking in the terrified woman standing in front of her. Although Skye smiles reassuringly at her, she still looks miserable. “You’re not safe in here with me. I - I could hurt you! You need to leave!”</p>
<p>“Don’t worry, I’m much tougher than I look.” Hannah appears dubious. Holding her breath, Skye makes a split-second decision. Then she whispers conspiratorially, “Watch this.” And then she directs a small quake onto the wall. Hannah looks shocked. “Yeah, I have powers. Shh, don’t tell the others. Coulson, he’s the boss man, he’s the only one who knows. But I can protect myself, so you don’t have to worry about me getting hurt, okay? I just want to talk. Is that all right?”</p>
<p>Hannah manages a faint nod. She seems reassured by the knowledge that Skye has powers so can defend herself, which was what she was going for by telling her. “What happened?” she questions shakily.</p>
<p>“The plane crashed, but nobody was harmed. And what’s happening, it’s not your fault,” Skye is quick to add, seeing the guilt on her face. “We were wrong - you don’t have powers of your own. But you need to stay in here so you’re safe, because something bad’s out there.”</p>
<p>Hannah slides down the wall, dragging her knees to her chest. Skye is swift to follow her, sitting down next to her. “I'm so sorry,” the woman whispers. “You’re wrong, it <i>is</i> my fault. It’s demons. They’re following me.”</p>
<p>“We don't know what it is,” Skye admits. “But I doubt it’s demons.”</p>
<p>“Do you believe in God?”</p>
<p>She grimaces. She can tell by the uptick of hope in Hannah’s voice that she wants Skye to believe in the same God she does, but it doesn’t feel right to lie or pretend. “Honestly? Not really.”</p>
<p>Hannah curls closer to her, resting her head on Skye’s shoulder tiredly. “Well, I do. And I know that He's punishing me, and I deserve it.”</p>
<p>“No. No, you don't,” Skye immediately replies, grasping her hand. “No one does. I grew up in an orphanage with these mean, scary old nuns - not that all nuns are mean and scary! These ones just didn’t like children, which always confused me, because why would they run an orphanage? They would always talk like that, terrifying us with stories of God's wrath whenever we did something wrong or made a mistake.” She huffs out a wet laugh. “I had one of the nuns tell me that God was going to send me to Hell once when I was seven, because I had a nightmare and wet the bed. It made me not want to believe.” Tightening her grip on Hannah’s hand, she carries on, “The only words that stuck with me were something that this one nun who was nice to me, Sister McKenna, said from the Bible, I think. She said, ‘God is love’. It's simple and it's a little sappy, but that's the version I like. God is love... the thing that holds us together. And if that's true, I don't think He would punish you for making a mistake. I think He'd forgive a mistake.”</p>
<p>“I want to believe that,” Hannah rasps. “I do.”</p>
<p>“Then you should. That’s what faith is about, right?” Skye nudges her gently, hoping to cheer her up a little. “Belief without proof, but confidence in its truth. If you believe that God can forgive you, then He probably does.”</p>
<p>Hannah emits a soft sound of acknowledgment. Hopefully, she got through to her. After a moment of silence, the woman asks quietly, “If you don’t believe in God, then how do you think you got your powers, Skye? I’m guessing you don’t think they were a gift from Heaven, or a curse from Hell.”</p>
<p>She chuckles. “Ah, no. Not a gift,” she replies, her voice wry. “Not a curse, either. I’m not actually sure… I was always under the impression it was genetics and mad science. The mad kind of science that’s messed up and illegal.”</p>
<p>Hannah pulls back, facing her head-on with a very serious expression. “Well, I think you’re a Miracle.”</p>
<p>Skye’s stomach lurches and the sharp metallic taste of blood fills her mouth.</p>
<p>
  <i>“Oh baby girl, you’re finally in my arms again! My miracle, my beautiful baby, returned to me after you were stolen by those horrible SHIELD people. Now you can fulfill your birthright, Daisy! Now you can finally be freed!”</i>
</p>
<p>What the hell was that? She blinks dazedly. She can’t remember her father ever saying that to her before. In fact, she can’t remember the context of it either. Did she forget that conversation or something?</p>
<p>Hastily scrubbing her eyes as she finds tears of fear swelling, Skye responds to Hannah shakily, “No, I don’t think so. You wouldn’t either, if you saw how I act when Fitz steals my Captain Crunch,” she attempts to joke. “You’d think I was a terror then.”</p>
<p>Hannah tilts her head. “What do you believe in, Skye?”</p>
<p>“I’m not sure, I’ve never really spent much time thinking about it,” she says, lost for words. It’s an incredibly heavy question and not one she’s ever properly considered before. “I don’t really believe in a higher power, or life after death, or fate. Definitely not big on the whole idea of predestination. I - I guess I believe in things like love and choice and conscience. Concepts I can experience, rather than just have faith in. Trust, justice, loyalty. It sounds stupid.”</p>
<p>“It’s not stupid,” Hannah replies softly.</p>
<p>“I suppose most of all, I believe in my team.” Skye plays with her fingers, looking down at her hands in her lab with furrowed eyebrows. “I’ve never really had anything like this before. People who care about me, believe in <i>me</i>. Make sure I’m safe and feeling okay and eating properly... now I <i>know</i> I sound stupid.”</p>
<p>Hannah’s next question, while sad and exposing, is a simple one. “You’ve never had a family before?” </p>
<p>“Not one that’s ever given me a second chance after I made a mistake,” she says honestly. “And these guys have given me <i>plenty</i> of second chances. Way more than I could ever hope for or deserve.”</p>
<p>The door swings open suddenly. Both of them jump in their skins and blink up as a torch beam lands on them, making them squint. It’s May, with a steely expression. “You shouldn’t be in here,” she tells Skye flatly.</p>
<p>Ah, right, of course she’s going to get lectured about that. Skye resists the urge to roll her eyes, knowing her mentor won’t find it at all amusing. “Hannah and I were just having a lovely chat.” Skye clambers to her feet. “Everything okay?”</p>
<p>May holds the door open wider for her, in a silent gesture for her to exit the Cage. “Coulson needs help with the emergency transceiver. I'll stand guard now.”</p>
<p>Skye glances back down at Hannah, who has returned to looking forlorn. Damn, and they were just getting somewhere. May might not have intended to ruin things, but she has. “I would rather stay here for a while -” she starts.</p>
<p>“It needs to get done, not discussed,” May cuts in sharply. She leaves no room for argument. “That's an order.”</p>
<p>Skye sighs. Peering back down at Hannah, she tells her reassuringly, “I'll nearby if you need me, okay?” When Hannah nods wordlessly, Skye sighs and follows May out of the Cage, watching with a sour feeling as the specialist locks the Cage up again. Not at all caring about the poor, despondent woman inside. Anger flares up inside of her again as she grits out, “Try not to hurt her any more than you already have, Agent May.”</p>
<p>May says nothing as she walks away, although Skye thinks she senses a tiny downshift in her vibrations that usually indicates something resembling regret or dejection. She doesn’t get long to think about it, though, because as soon as she enters Coulson’s office, he doesn’t even spare her a greeting before pushing her towards the wall, where a framed picture of the BUS fuselage blueprints usually is hung. It’s been removed to reveal a mayday ratio panel, which doesn’t appear to be working on the emergency power, which Coulson informs her it should be.</p>
<p>Skye gets her laptop hooked up, hoping that the cuff on her ankle isn’t going to interfere with these diagnostics. After a couple of minutes, she determines, “Seems like a hardware issue, rather than firmware, which means it’s not going to be an easy or a quick fix. You’d be better off getting Fitz in here to look at it, but I reckon he won’t be able to repair it without any power.” She begins disconnecting the wires, muttering, “I should be with Hannah, anyway. I was getting her to calm down before May arrived. And given that she <i>clearly</i> hates powered people, and that’s the impression Hannah first got of her, it’s no wonder she keeps crying in there. You keep sending in the Cavalry, you’re bound to get that reaction.”</p>
<p>“Don’t call her that,” Coulson responds without a second to spare, shaking his head.</p>
<p>Skye casts a confused look back at him, raising an eyebrow. “Why not? No normal person could shoot down over one hundred -”</p>
<p>“That’s not how it went down.”</p>
<p>He’s getting awfully defensive. She shrugs. “Whatever, okay, twenty. I just don’t understand -”</p>
<p>“She didn't have a gun. None of us did.” She freezes, turns her full attention onto Coulson. He looks directly back at her, making strong eye contact. He was there in Bahrain, she realizes. He knows what truly happened. Her SO’s expression is a cross between grief-stricken and lost. “And it wasn't a rescue or an assault, whatever they say at the Academy these days. We were the welcome wagon. And it went south.” He looks away, stricken. “She won’t appreciate me telling you this, but as her trainee, you should know. You <i>need</i> to know.”</p>
<p>Abandoning her laptop completely, Skye contemplates what he just said. “How many...” She’s not even sure what she’s asking, to be honest. How many enemies? Hostages?</p>
<p>“Plenty,” Coulson responds, his voice wretched with dragged-up, dark memories. “A young civilian girl and a few of our guys were stuck inside a building, being held by the followers of this gifted individual... or worshippers. We never found out.”</p>
<p>Skye clenches her jaw. “May did,” she guesses.</p>
<p>Coulson nods solemnly. “She took it upon herself to get them out.” Standing, he moves closer so he’s leaning against his desk only about a foot away from her. “By herself. Said she could fix the problem. So she went in alone, crossed off the enemy force. Didn't say how.”</p>
<p>It’s a grim picture. “Did she lose anyone in there?” she asks, dreading the answer.</p>
<p>His tiny smile is mournful. “Yes.”</p>
<p>Skye somehow knows without him having to elaborate. Her heart skips a beat painfully and her chest aches. “The little girl,” she whispers. Everything is clicking into place, and suddenly she feels awful for having judged May for her behavior earlier.</p>
<p>Coulson runs a hand over his face as his shoulders slump. “I found May on the floor, with the dead girl in her arms. She wouldn’t let go of her,” he says hoarsely, voice thick with tears. “As well as losing the girl, she lost herself. May, she… she used to be different. She was always quiet, she just... she was warm. Fearless in a different way, getting in trouble, pulling pranks, thought rules were meant to be broken.” He smiles at her, cracked and strained. “Sound familiar?” She gives a small nod, returning his fractured smile. His soon drops off his face, though, leaving him looking tired and scarred. “But when she walked out of that building... it was like that part of her was gone. I tried to comfort her, but she wouldn't tell me what went down in there. Whatever did, she blamed herself for. She drowned in her guilt over the girl’s death.” </p>
<p>It’s hard to know how to react to hearing all this. Or even what to say to Coulson, who is obviously just as torn up over what happened now than he was back then. The entire story is just horrifying. She can’t honestly believe that people at SHIELD make jokes about it, when it’s so traumatizing. “What did you say to her?” Skye murmurs.</p>
<p>“The words I thought she needed to hear. They were never enough. Her closest family and friends rallied around her to try and offer support, but there was no reaching her. She was inconsolable.” Coulson closes his eyes, exhales in shame, as if he holds himself personally responsible for her mental decline. “She left Ops straight after filing the Bahrain mission report, transferred to Administration.”</p>
<p>Realization dawns on her. “It's why you want her on the plane ... to see if that person you knew before Bahrain is still in there somewhere.”</p>
<p>“She is.” Hope and longing shine in his eyes. “I see her whenever I see the two of you interacting. As well as being quiet, May has always had a maternal air about her. She loved helping out at the Ops Academy whenever she wasn’t on mission, helped run physical training. Enjoyed teaching the younger kids who were scrappy, but unsure about their own strengths and skills. She excelled in that sort of environment, working as a mentor. She didn’t have that in Admin.” Reaching out, Coulson gently pokes her shoulder. “Now she does, here on the BUS, with you. She cares about you, but is too afraid to admit it, I think.” He pauses and then adds thoughtfully, “She doesn’t hate powered people, either. I think that after what happened in Bahrain, she’s wary of them, too aware of what could happen if something goes wrong.”</p>
<p>That’s understandable. And definitely explains a lot of her actions today. “She doesn’t want to lose another little girl.” Thinking back on how May has treated her ever since her first day on the plane, another puzzle piece slots into place. Disbelief flits through her. “Am… am I her little girl?”</p>
<p>Coulson nods, gently nudging her leg with his. “Yes. She certainly feels responsible for you, given that you’re essentially a kid and completely new to SHIELD - well, as far as she’s aware,” he tells her, with a tender smile. “Today, she was out of her mind when we found you unconscious. And when she’s scared, she puts her walls up and refuses to let people in. You’re the only one I’ve seen so far who’s managed to chip them down.” He swallows hard. “Don’t give up on her, please. She’s my best friend. I swear to you, when you tell her about your powers, she isn’t going to react badly. May could be your greatest ally and supporter, if you just let her.”</p>
<p>Resolve washing over her as she processes her newfound perspective on her physical trainer, Skye promises, “I will.”</p>
<p>No sooner has she said this than the office door slams shut with a resounding crash and rattle, the lock heavily sliding into place. They both rush over to examine it.</p>
<p>“It’s jammed,” she grits out, as she tries to use her powers to unlock it. “I don’t think I can open it without blowing the door off its hinges.”</p>
<p>Suddenly, a hand closes around her throat, cutting off her air supply. A man - <i>Tobias Ford</i> - strangles her, pinning her against the wall, and through the spots of black, she can see that he’s wielding a wrench threateningly at Coulson. “Let me in, or let her out!” he screams.</p>
<p>“That’s not up to us!” her SO shouts, raising his hands into the surrender position.</p>
<p>“Let her out!” Tobias bellows, tightening his hand on her throat. “Or I swear I’ll kill her!”</p>
<p>No way is she dying today by the hands of some ghost dude. Allowing the vibrations to build up inside of her, Skye yanks the breaks off her powers all at once, so they slam into Tobias. He instantly disappears.</p>
<p>“Are you alright?” Coulson panics, cupping her cheek.</p>
<p>“I’m fine,” she replies dazedly, rubbing her sore neck. “We need to get out of here. Permission to quake your door, sir?”</p>
<p>Coulson backs away. “Permission granted. Do it,” he commands. “We can’t let him get to Hannah.”</p>
<p>She takes a step back and thrusts her right arm out, hand splayed. The quake rips the door straight out of the frame and sends it soaring into the opposite wall.</p>
<p>“Let’s go,” Coulson orders, grabbing his gun and radio. “This isn’t anywhere near over yet.”</p>
<hr/>
<p>May is the person who, in the end, resolves the issue and completes their mission, saving Hannah by convincing Tobias Ford, who has been trapped between dimensions and creating chaos by trying to protect Hannah, to move on from her. They only catch the tail end of her speech to Tobias, but Skye can hear the compassion and empathy in her voice as she repeatedly tells Tobias that he needs to let the girl go.</p>
<p>May is not a lost cause. In fact, she’s one of the most thoughtful and wonderful people Skye knows. And she deserves her patience and understanding. When she explains how she understands this to Coulson, later on after Hannah is sleeping and repairs have been made to switch the power back on, he tells her that one of her best qualities is the fact that she is always willing to see the good in people.</p>
<p>After everything she’s suffered through, Skye honestly thought that was something she lost, along with being able to trust and rely on others. But with this team, she’s re-learning… opening up. And soon, she might be ready to open up completely to them. Telling Hannah about her powers was easy, because she’s a stranger that she’s never going to see again. With the team, it’s going to be harder. But she believes in them. She has faith.</p>
<p>Once they’re ready to fly Hannah back home, Skye takes a chance and knocks on the cockpit door. She steps in without waiting for May to answer, and sees that the specialist is preparing the plane for take-off.</p>
<p>“Hey,” she whispers. “Mind if I keep you company?”</p>
<p>May doesn’t respond, but her vibrations are warm and non-hostile, so she takes it as a yes. Sliding into the co-pilot’s seat, she buckles up, observing in wonder how the BUS is capable of vertical take-off. Seeing it from up front here is mindblowing.</p>
<p>The silence that settles between them is comfortable. There’s no need to break it. Skye feels like she understands May more now than she ever has before, especially dialing into her vibrations. She doesn’t need May to talk to her to know that the specialist appreciates her presence.</p>
<p>“Can we spar later?” Skye asks eventually.</p>
<p>A beat, and then May is questioning bemusedly, “You still want to spar with me?”</p>
<p>“Yeah. You’re my trainer.”</p>
<p>“Given your anger at me earlier, I presumed we were done.”</p>
<p>Uncertainty claws in her chest like knives. “Do you want to be done?”</p>
<p>May casts her a dubious look. “I thought you did.”</p>
<p>“I don’t,” she replies. “I’m sorry I was angry. I was dealing with… stuff. It wasn’t on you.” And it definitely isn’t now that she understands May’s reasoning behind her sedating Hannah and being so cautious. “I shouldn’t have snapped at you outside the Cage. It was rude of me. I’m sorry.”</p>
<p>Nodding, May replies simply, “Then we spar later, once I put the plane on auto-pilot.” She turns her head minutely towards her. “If you ever again pull a stunt like you did today, disobeying my orders and throwing yourself into danger, <i>that’s</i> when we’re done.”</p>
<p>“I’m sorry.”</p>
<p>“Do you remember how you felt when Simmons was infected with the alien virus?” the specialist asks tightly.</p>
<p>Skye does. The fear and dread and horror was suffocating.</p>
<p>“That’s how I felt today,” May continues. “Because when I ran out of the cockpit to find you, at first… I didn’t think you were breathing. I can’t have you being that reckless again, Skye. If you carry on running headfirst into danger like that, we’re going to lose you. None of us would be able to cope with that.”</p>
<p>Her heart skips a beat. She can only imagine how terrified May must have been. “I’m sorry I scared you. I promise to try and be more cautious in the future. <i>And</i> listen to your orders. And, um… thanks for worrying about me. Nobody’s really… cared… enough to be concerned before. This thing with you and Coulson and the team… it’s new to me. I’m still getting used to it.”</p>
<p>May casts a sideways look at her, her brow slightly furrowed. “To having people looking out for you?”</p>
<p>She shrugs helplessly, staring down at her hands. “Yeah.” It sounds really pathetic when May puts it like that.</p>
<p>“I think you’ll find here, working under Coulson, that when you need it most, you’ll have people to watch your back,” May says, after a brief pause. “He’s a very compassionate commanding officer. And this team is unique. It’s… rare, to find a group like this who cares about each other beyond the scopes of their mission objectives or simply keeping each other alive.” Another short pause, and then she adds quietly, “I know I don’t always… express it very well, but I am glad to have you here with us.”</p>
<p>Skye has to clear her throat to respond, “Thanks,” so that the specialist can’t tell that she just made her tear up, but she thinks that she probably failed given that her voice cracks a little.</p>
<p>May gives a sharp nod and then changes the subject abruptly. “Tell me more about what Coulson found at the Hub, about the foster system protocol.”</p>
<p>“You know about that?” And then she remembers May saying in the past that she talks to Coulson about her when she’s worried, and remembers Coulson saying that May cares about her but is afraid to admit it. “It’s going to take a long time to do the proper research, and I probably won’t get any worthwhile information from it. I’m sure it’s boring.”</p>
<p>“It’s not boring if it’s important to you,” May replies. “Tell me. Coulson says that it was a SHIELD agent who dropped you off at the orphanage. Talk me through your thought processes regarding that. I might be able to help.”</p>
<p>It’s an offer. To be her support, to be somebody Skye can go to for aid and comfort.</p>
<p>She jumps at it. “Okay, well, I guess I better start by saying that I think there might be a chance this agent could have been my mother…”</p>
<p>(Later, she realizes she had the perfect opportunity to tell May about her powers, and she completely ignored it.</p>
<p><i>Coward</i>, that dark voice from the depth of her mind hisses. <i>You’re a coward</i>.</p>
<p>She can’t argue with that.</p>
<p><i>Soon</i>, she promises.)</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>next update: nov 22nd</p>
<p>(and it's the chapter you've all been waiting for ;) )</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Chapter 6</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>here we go, folks</p>
<p>as always, thank you for all the support, please heed the trigger warnings in the tags, and i hope you enjoy!!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Thanksgiving falls only a couple of days after they wrap up the mission and ensure Hannah is safely returned home. Skye forgets about it until one day before, because holidays aren’t something she particularly invested in when she was in the foster system and on the run; the only reason she does remember it is because when she walks into the kitchen to grab breakfast after an exhausting morning’s work-out with May, Coulson is prepping a giant turkey, while Fitzsimmons are chopping vegetables. She can tell by their buzzing vibrations that all three of them are excited.</p>
<p>“Oh, Skye, excellent,” Coulson says, sounding pleased at her appearance. She raises an eyebrow at him, skidding her gaze over the chaos in the room. “I was hoping you could help Fitzsimmons peel potatoes, and then harass Ward into going out for extra groceries we need. I need to start making shortcrust for the pies.” </p>
<p>“SHIELD does Thanksgiving,” she notes, trying not to appear too surprised. “This is a common thing, a team’s commanding officer cooking a full holiday lay-out for them?”</p>
<p>“Well, not exactly,” Coulson shrugs. “Thought it would be nice, though.” He casts a glance over at the two Brits. “Fitzsimmons have never celebrated a proper Thanksgiving before.”</p>
<p>“Everybody at the Academy who celebrated usually went home,” Fitz pipes up, currently struggling with slicing red onions in half without crying. “All of the internationals stayed on campus, but we spent it as a reading week - Jemma ‘n I normally holed ourselves up in the lab.”</p>
<p>“Coulson reckons we’ve been ‘missing out’.” The sarcastic quotation marks Jemma makes with her fingers make Skye grin. “He’s convinced we need the ‘real experience’.”</p>
<p>Skye side-steps around the two scientists and then her SO so she can grab a banana, milk from the fridge, peanut butter, and her chocolate protein shake powder. She quickly uses the blender to make her shake and then dumps the used blender jug in the sink so she can skip out of their way. Hopping up onto the kitchen table, she watches and sips on her shake while Coulson rolls out pastry, Jemma dresses carrots to roast, and Fitz continues crying and slicing onions.</p>
<p>“You’re preparing everything now, then, so we can just shove it into the oven tomorrow?”</p>
<p>“We’re making stuffing and green bean casserole in the morning, so it’s better to get most of the food ready now, so the kitchen doesn’t become too busy,” Coulson explains. “That reminds me actually - what’s your stance on mushrooms in the casserole?”</p>
<p>She shrugs. “I like mushrooms, as long as there aren’t too many. But I’ve never had green bean casserole before, so I don’t have a specific stance on them being included or not.”</p>
<p>Coulson stops his crimping of the pie crust to stare at her, a tiny frown marring his brow and a scrutinizing glint in his eyes. Even Fitzsimmons halt in what they’re doing to tilt their heads confusedly at her. Skye shifts uncomfortably, feeling very exposed all of a sudden.</p>
<p>“You’ve never had green bean casserole before?” Coulson asks slowly. She shakes her head. “Skye, when was the last time you celebrated Thanksgiving?”</p>
<p>She thinks back, trying to remember. “Um, when I was eight, I guess?” She was staying with a family with two other foster kids at the time - a relatively nice family, with adults who weren’t abusive or alcoholic, just absent a lot because of work. They had a rotisserie chicken from the grocery store, instant mash potatoes and gravy, some microwaved steamed vegetables, and cornbread. It wasn’t an amazing Thanksgiving dinner, looking back on it, but she didn’t have to fight or sneak around or work for the food, so it was great at the time. “Does a turkey, cheese, and cranberry sandwich from a vending machine in a hospital count? Because if that does, I was thirteen.” It probably doesn’t count… she decides not to mention the fact that the reason she was in the hospital was because she ran away from the orphanage and broke her ankle by falling off a fire escape.</p>
<p>“You haven’t celebrated any of the years you’ve been living by yourself?” Fitz questions.</p>
<p>Skye shakes her head. She was basically living on the streets, no permanent home, with barely enough money to feed herself; Thanksgiving wasn’t really something you celebrated when you were homeless, poor, and on the run. “I don’t really <i>do</i> holidays,” she says lamely.</p>
<p>Coulson looks <i>sad</i>. Sadder than she thinks she’s ever seen him before. It makes her heart clench with guilt knowing that she’s the one who’s caused it, so Skye instantly lowers her gaze to the floor, biting her lip. She can’t bring herself to look at Fitzsimmons either, knowing that they’ll be looking at her with pity, which she can’t stand.</p>
<p>“SHIELD agents don’t normally either,” Coulson tells her, sounding suddenly very determined. “I haven’t done Thanksgiving since 2010, and I spent it extracting Romanoff and Barton from Budapest under heavy gunfire. Fitzsimmons have never done it. So I guess we’re gonna have to learn how to do Thanksgiving again together.”</p>
<p>Actually shaken by Coulson’s firm resolve to make this Thanksgiving as incredible as possible for the three BUS kids, Skye agrees to help out with cooking and other preparations. She spends a good two hours making mashed potatoes with Jemma, adding extra heavy cream, butter, garlic, and herbs to make them as decadent as possible; after that, she helps Coulson make the fillings for the three pies he’s baking: one apple, one peanut butter meringue, and one pumpkin. That starts a debate with Ward, who insists that pecan is better. May finally has to break the argument up when it gets too heated, sending Ward out with a grocery list while she supervises the rest of the cooking.</p>
<p>They finish all the food prep just after lunch, leaving them with the rest of the afternoon free, considering they haven’t been assigned any work. Fitzsimmons vanish off to the lab and Ward heads straight for the cargo hold for a work-out after he returns with groceries. May makes the three of them remaining in the kitchen chai tea. Skye sits atop the counter and observes as Coulson sorts out the fridge. He’s organizing ingredients for the rest of the dishes and writing a timetable for when things need to go into the oven tomorrow. He’s taking this team meal remarkably seriously, almost as if he’s going to be assessed on it.</p>
<p>“I should make candied pecans for Ward,” Coulson says absentmindedly as he roots through the kitchen cabinets. “He might shut up about the pumpkin pie, then.”</p>
<p>“Was it tradition for you while you were growing up to always have a pumpkin pie?” Skye asks curiously.</p>
<p>“It was tradition to have three pies, and one of them was always pumpkin. Sometimes we had pumpkin and pecan. But this year, I thought I would go with a traditional English apple pie for Fitzsimmons, and a peanut butter meringue, only because I’ve never made one before. It’ll be a good challenge.” He eyes her somewhat cautiously. “What about you? Any traditions?”</p>
<p>“Flipping around the foster system? No. Unless you can consider a history of always getting thrown out of foster homes shortly after holidays a ‘tradition’.”</p>
<p>She’s shocked to hear herself sounding so bitter - that certainly crept up on her without her realizing it. She figures that ever since she started thinking about that particular foster family she had when she was eight, she’s been subconsciously thinking about how she ended up leaving that house. Skye grimaces when she sees that both Coulson and May are staring at her now, looking at her warily as if they want to ask, but are too afraid to.</p>
<p>She figures she’ll tell them anyway. “That, er, last Thanksgiving I mentioned I celebrated when I was eight, it was with a pretty decent family. The parents forced us to say what we were thankful for that year, and then say what we wanted for Christmas, before they allowed us to eat. The other two foster kids said they were thankful to be staying with them, and then named a toy or something they wanted.” She swallows, drawing nervous circles on the tops of her thighs. “I said the same thing for what I was thankful for, but then told them I wanted them to adopt me for Christmas. It was so stupid, I see that now. I’d only been living there a month. They drove me back to the orphanage a week later. They got rid of me because I wanted to stay too much.”</p>
<p>Barely a heartbeat after she falls silent, her wrist is being snagged and she’s being crushed to Coulson’s chest in a tight hug. Normally she would hate being grabbed without warning or permission, but her SO’s embrace is secure and warm and <i>safe</i>, and Skye finds herself instinctively relaxing into it as she buries her face in his shoulder. His vibrations inform her that he’s a little bit distressed, but all of his emotions towards her are protective and affectionate. Then, she jolts when another hand rests delicately on her back - May’s hand, as she’s circled around the table to stand beside them supportively.</p>
<p>“As long as you want to be here with us, we will <i>never</i> send you away,” Coulson murmurs, brushing a kiss against her temple. “You’re a part of this team, of our family.”</p>
<p>She wants to believe that so badly. But there’s still a part of her that’s scared this isn’t going to last, and she’s never going to be able to get past that. Maybe a couple more months and she’ll start actually believing and trusting that they won’t dump her the moment it becomes inconvenient for them to keep her, or the next time she makes a mistake. For now, though, she’s content to listen to Coulson and the others tell her over and over again that she’s a valued team member, and let it motivate her to stay useful. Skye nods against him, exhaling shakily.</p>
<p>“You should give her her gift now,” May says.</p>
<p>Confused, Skye raises her head and pulls back a bit from the hug, glancing between them both. “‘Gift’?” she repeats.</p>
<p>Coulson shoots the specialist a half-hearted glare and then explains to her sheepishly, “I might have got you a Thanksgiving gift.”</p>
<p>She blinks, stunned. “What?”</p>
<p>Sighing, he crosses the room to rummage around in the baking cabinet - a cupboard that Skye would never open - and fishes around in the back until he extracts a small box wrapped in brown paper, with a twine bow tied to it. “It’s nothing big. Don’t get too excited.”</p>
<p>“Why?”</p>
<p>“Like I said, it’s nothing big.”</p>
<p>She blinks at him bemusedly. “No, why are you giving me a gift?”</p>
<p>Coulson’s small smile shatters and he’s back to regarding her sadly. “Has nobody ever given you something just because they wanted to before?”</p>
<p>“No, everything had to be earned in some way.” Taking the box gingerly, Skye asks hesitantly, “I can open it now?”</p>
<p>When Coulson nods, she unties the twine and slides her finger beneath the folds of the paper to tear it. The box is simple and black, something similar to a box that jewelry would be gifted in, but it’s too heavy to be something like that.</p>
<p>“It’s not going to be anything like this, is it?” she asks fearfully, hopping on one leg so she can stick out the ankle that has the cuff that blocks her from getting into SHIELD’s systems on it. Are they up- or down-grading her with a different bracelet?</p>
<p>“It’s the opposite,” Coulson reassures her, rubbing her arm. “Although that cuff isn’t coming off just yet, think of this as an indicator that you’re heading in the right direction.”</p>
<p>Skye scrapes her teeth over her bottom lip and with trembling fingers, opens the box up and peers inside. She carefully lifts out the contents: what appears to be a leather wallet. When she flips the wallet open, her heart drops like a stone in her chest and all of the oxygen rushes out of her lungs in delighted astonishment. It’s an official SHIELD badge. It has her name ‘SKYE’ and her chosen date of birth, with the title ‘Cybersecurity and Pattern Analysis Consultant’. She runs her fingers over the metal SHIELD badge; her eyes widen as the vibrations from her fingertips are swallowed up by the metal rather than being conducted through it and rebounding back.</p>
<p>Her gaze flits up to Coulson, and he gives her a small smile and nod. Skye has heard about the metal Vibranium before, that can absorb, store, and release large amounts of kinetic energy. It’s an incredibly rare and expensive metal, and her badge is an alloy that contains it. It’s incredibly calming to touch it, as it feels grounding. She can feel her anxiety lessening by the second as her vibrations are absorbed by it. Coulson must have arranged to have it made specially for her.</p>
<p>“I know you have your reasons not to trust SHIELD, and you’re still probably anti-government at heart, but you’ve become a core, important member of our team. Your work over the past month has been exceptional,” Coulson tells her. “Even despite the hindrance of the cuff.” He pats her shoulder lightly. “Happy Thanksgiving.”</p>
<p>She nods silently, lost for words. This is Coulson’s way of showing her that he believes in her and trusts her again. It means more to her than he could ever understand. She thinks she manages to choke out a grateful thank you, but her throat is thick, so she’s unsure of whether they can hear. Her SO must work out that she’s overwhelmed by emotion, because he shares a pointed look with May, before giving her one last supportive grin and giving her space. May remains and hovers for half a minute, as if she wants to make certain that Skye’s steady on her feet before she departs.</p>
<p>“You have unrestricted access to Level 1 and 2 files now,” May informs her, her lips twitching in a miniscule smile. That will help massively with her search for her mother, Skye realizes. “But don’t think this means our training slows down. Your roundhouse kicks are still sloppy.”</p>
<p>That triggers her to snicker. She spends the rest of the day with her badge in her pocket and her hand shoved in alongside it so she can keep her fingers touching the Vibranium-alloy badge, scarcely believing that it’s real. She shows the rest of the team it over dinner, which is Coulson’s mindblowing bacon mac and cheese, and they fawn over it while offering congratulations</p>
<p>Thanksgiving the next day is the best holiday she’s ever had. May lets her skip training and sleep in until ten in the morning; Coulson gets donuts delivered to the BUS for breakfast. They watch the Macy’s Parade, and then eat obscene amounts of fantastic food - even if it takes Coulson and Ward ten minutes to carve the turkey. The evening is spent binging all three Jurassic Park movies. Skye can’t help but dissolve into laughter every time Fitz and Jemma groan loudly and complain about how scientifically inaccurate the cloning process and dinosaur models are.</p>
<p>Ward ends up throwing popcorn at Fitz’s head every time he brings up a paleoart representation of a dinosaur species on his tablet and thrusting it in front of the screen, which results in a popcorn war breaking out. May and Coulson sit back and watch on completely unimpressedly the entire time; the only time they look amused is when all three of the BUS kids manage to pin Ward down and start force-feeding him popcorn from the floor, but that’s also the point where they step in as the adults and tell them all to behave.</p>
<p>Skye sends a tiny shockwave through the floor to knock Ward on his ass as her finishing move, which is absolutely hilarious, because he then spends the next ten minutes arguing with Fitz that he’s not clumsy at all and did <i>not</i> trip over his own feet.</p>
<p>“Best Thanksgiving ever,” she wheezes out as she laughs, curled up on the couch with her head resting on Jemma’s shoulder.</p>
<p>They all beam at her happily.</p>
<p>“Best Thanksgiving ever,” Jemma echoes, cuddling up to her.</p>
<hr/>
<p>The search for her mother out of thousands of female SHIELD field agents and specialists who were active at the time of Skye’s birth, seems inconsequential when Centipede reappears out of the shadows. She puts it aside for now to focus on the mission, knowing that Coulson and May won’t want her distracted.</p>
<p>Salvaged research from Hong Kong, and two labs that have been established since then, have led to the serum being perfected and supersoldiers being created - and those soldiers broke into a prison to extract a man called Edison Po. Their team is assigned to the investigation. Skye is unsure of how to feel about it, given that going up against enhanced individuals always seems to result in her having to use her powers out in public - but then she finds out that they’re not working alone. Mike Peterson, whose Centipede implant has stabilized since Union Station, has been training as a SHIELD asset, will be joining them on the op.</p>
<p>Skye likes Mike. Despite the fact he went kind of crazy back when he first encountered SHIELD, because of the unstable serum inside of him, he’s a good guy who she knows wants to make the world a better and safer place for his adorable son Ace to live in. She’s also partly relieved he’s going to be on their team for this because having him as their super-powered backup means that she’s less likely to be needed to use her own powers. There’s also the fact that Mike knows about them. She trusts that he won’t say anything to the team - he gets the need for privacy - but he’ll be the perfect person to run over ideas with of how to tell the others about her quake abilities. Coulson, whether he accepts it or not, can be pretty biased, but Mike will offer a new perspective for her.</p>
<p>While everybody else is assigned their individual tasks, Skye is asked to look into Po’s records, both outside and inside of prison. It doesn’t take long before she finds something interesting. The only person who ever visited Po in jail was a woman in a flower dress - who could be the same person who asked Miles to hack SHIELD. She has to be connected with Centipede somehow. Lipreading programs she uses on footage of their visit reveals Po mentioning somebody called ‘The Clairvoyant’: a codename for somebody, possibly somebody with psychic abilities who is also linked to Centipede.</p>
<p>Mike helps them identify the woman with an obsession with floral prints. Her name is Raina, and she recruited him for Centipede, so it’s likely she’s recruiting the new soldiers as well. Whoever she is, she’s extremely dangerous. Weirdly, Skye feels like she’s seen her before, although can’t place her face or identity. When they inform Coulson about her, he and May speculate that Raina was recruiting Po to be one of the Centipede soldiers, perhaps even their leader given his background in tactical strategy.</p>
<p>Coulson is out with Ward tracking down the sister of one of the Centipede soldiers they were able to identify, Brian Hayward. When they call Coulson about the Clairvoyant, he immediately shoots down Skye’s suggestions that it’s somebody who can see the future and read their every move, which is why SHIELD has been having such a hard time tracking Centipede lately.</p>
<p>“They can’t have a psychic. There are none on the Index, they’re a myth.”</p>
<p>“Maybe you’ve just never encountered one before, A.C.,” Skye replies, trying to make her voice as pointed as possible so her tone gets through the comm unit. “Suspend your disbelief. It’s possible.”</p>
<p>“It could be an alias, so I’ll run it through our database,” he says, shrugging her suggestion off. Skye rolls her eyes. Months of her quaking things in front of him and him learning about her past on the run, and he’s still struggling to believe in the existence of people of powers not on the Index. “Great work, Skye. Stay on it. Ward’s approaching the sister now. We’ll try and get a location on Hayward to investigate.”</p>
<p>Oakland, California is where they track Hayward’s phone to be located, so May sets a course there once Ward and Coulson are back on the BUS. It’ll take around four hours to fly there, so Skye decides to go and pay Mike a visit halfway through the flight.</p>
<p>“Skye, hey, come in,” Mike welcomes her cheerfully into the Cage, which has been transformed into his room as there aren’t any spare bunks. They’ve put a cot and a cardboard box to act as a table in there though.</p>
<p>“Hey, Mike,” she greets him. “Looks almost homey in here.” He snorts in amusement. When she spots that he’s looking at a photo, she brightens. “Is that Ace?” He nods, shuffling up on the bed so she can sit beside him. Upon seeing the picture, Skye gasps. “Whoa, he’s grown a lot since I last saw him. Time flies, huh. Still a cutie though. He must be so proud of you, his dad working for SHIELD.” Mike quirks an eyebrow. “Oh. Right. Which he can't know with everything being classified.”</p>
<p>Mike shrugs. “That's all right. He knows I'm working. Called him on his birthday and gave him all the ‘Heroes of New York’ action figures.” He gestures up and down her. “Look at you, though! Full-blown SHIELD consultant. A far cry from a hacker living in a van.”</p>
<p>“Oh, god, I miss my van,” she groans, making him laugh. “Yeah, it’s become a good thing. I’ve got my own badge now and everything. Officially issued.” She fishes it out from her pocket to show him proudly.</p>
<p>“That’s awesome, Skye, I’m so happy for you!” Mike grins.</p>
<p>She smiles back. “Yeah, these guys are cool, and as annoying as they can be sometimes, you’ve gotta love them.”</p>
<p>Mike glances up at the camera in the corner. “Do they know about...? Uh.”</p>
<p>“Coulson does,” she informs him. “The others… I’m working out how to tell them. It’ll be very soon, though. Have any advice?”</p>
<p>“Well, do you trust them?”</p>
<p>“Yeah, I think I do. Honestly, after everything we’ve been through together, I’d do anything for them at this point.”</p>
<p>“That’s great!” Mike beams. “I feel the same way about Ace, ya know. I would do anything for him too.” He pats her leg. “That’s how you know it’s family. As long as you feel comfortable and safe around them, there’s no need to be afraid. Families protect each other.”</p>
<p><i>Family</i>. Her stomach twists. Is that how having a family feels? She wouldn’t know, as she’s never really had one. Mike seems to think that the team is her family though, and he’s a man with strong family ties, so he would know what a family looks like, wouldn’t he? Fitzsimmons are like her siblings, Coulson and May are their parents… Ward is either their weird uncle or cousin. But they fit together as a family unit.</p>
<p>When they arrive in Oakland, Coulson briefs them all, telling them that they’ve tracked Hayward’s phone to an abandoned factory, which they suspect is now functioning as a new Centipede lab. It’s just going to be the seven of them on this op, which Skye finds herself getting anxious over; they don’t know how many Centipede soldiers they could be up against, and sneaking into facilities quietly has never been their team’s strong suit. She’s placed on back-end with Fitzsimmons, which she knows is Coulson’s way of telling her to protect the two scientists.</p>
<p>The factory, when they arrive, appears to be empty, which is just… <i>incredibly</i> suspicious. From their van, Skye is able to pick up a strange electronic signal from inside the building, but she struggles trying to isolate it. This feels very much like a trap, and she hates it. It turns out it is indeed a trap - more accurately, it’s an ambush. Skye feels utterly helpless, but knows she can do nothing but watch as Mike, Coulson, Ward, and May fight the super-powered soldiers together.</p>
<p>Mike is badly beaten, but they manage to pull through, and get Hayward pinned. As soon as they begin interrogating him, though… they discover that the Centipede soldiers have apparently been put through the same cybernetic eye procedure that Akela Amador was subjected to. Because Hayward’s eye is detonated and he’s instantly killed, braindead in less than a heartbeat.</p>
<p>To Skye’s frustration, the eye’s technology has been updated to the point where she can’t hack into it to trace its feed. In all honestly, it rattles her, because as Coulson points out, their technological advances suggest that they have endless power, resources, and money. Her father and Spectre were and still are exactly like that, and it makes her wonder, with cold dread spreading down her spine, whether or not there’s possibly a connection there.</p>
<p>She’s tempted to grab her thumb drive and dive back into the files onto it to see if there’s a Centipede link, but before she gets the chance, Mike finds out that Raina and Centipede have kidnapped his son and are holding him hostage. They’ve set a time and a place, and they want Mike to hand himself over, otherwise they’ll kill Ace. They have no choice but to agree to the meet and tell HQ to stand down, because one wrong move and that poor little boy will end up dead. Any signs of electronics, comms, or surveillance, and Raina will terminate the arrangement. Fitzsimmons think they have a way to be able to track him without any of those things, though, so there’s a chance that they’ll be able to rescue Mike after the trade-off.</p>
<p>Skye doesn’t like it. She does not like it <i>at all</i>. The anxiety of it sets her vibrations askew, and everybody is so wound up and tense that it sets her teeth on edge even more. The location itself where the meet is planned for is a street with roadworks, meaning that there will be a load of equipment and heavy machinery around that will provide Raina with the perfect cover, blocking snipers and making it almost impossible to watch from a distance.</p>
<p>When the meet takes place, Skye hangs in the SUV behind the barriers nervously with the rest of the team as they watch Coulson and Mike walk forward for the exchange.</p>
<p>But then everything starts to go wrong. Instead of taking Mike, Raina and the Centipede soldiers take Coulson instead. Skye watches in horror as Mike starts running back towards them with Ace safely in his arms, but Raina injects Coulson with something that makes him collapse.</p>
<p>Jumping out of the car, she races forwards, ready to take on the soldiers herself, because there is <i>no fucking way</i> they are kidnapping Coulson. She will <i>not</i> let that happen, on her life. But before she gets through the barriers, Mike is shoving Ace into her arms, yelling at her to keep him safe before he turns and sprints back towards where Raina and the soldiers are dragging the knocked out Coulson to a vehicle.</p>
<p>And then the oil tankers lining each side of the street <i>explode.</i> Giant, roaring flames consume the road and the cars parked near it, and the force of the detonation almost knocks all of the team backwards; their shrieks and yells ring in her ears like cloister bells. Mike vanishes into the fire, lost in the blaze. Coulson is nowhere to be seen. Her friend and SO, disappeared in an instant.</p>
<p>“NO!” Skye screams, her entire world falling to pieces. “MIKE! <i>COULSON!</i>”</p>
<p>Above the buffetting black smoke, a helicopter rises, disappearing into the night. It’s too far away for her to quake down. Out of reach.</p>
<p>Coulson is gone.</p>
<p>No. Not gone.</p>
<p>Taken.</p>
<hr/>
<p>Overwhelming, blinding rage, combined with piercing, agonizing desperation, ensnare her tightly in their grips over the next twenty-four hours. She thinks she must go into shock at some point, as her memories are spotty, and all she can really remember is Jemma and Fitz having to half-carry her onto the BUS and prise Ace from her arms, as she refused to let go of him. May and Ward handle everything; they contact HQ to report Coulson’s kidnapping, and before Skye knows it, their BUS is landing at the Hub, and Agent Hand, as well as dozens of other SHIELD agents, are boarding and taking over.</p>
<p>Hand being put in charge of Coulson’s rescue does not fill her with confidence - in fact, it only increases her anger, to the point where she’s sending tremors through the plane’s fuselage without realizing it. Hand has shown before that she is ruthless, and doesn’t care about individual agents. Skye knows that she isn’t going to be focusing on Coulson. And Hand proves that she’s right in thinking this, when in briefings she talks about taking down Centipede, without any mention of saving Skye’s SO.</p>
<p>She paces the cabin restlessly, waiting for an assignment. She turns down May’s offer to spar, knowing that any kind of physical fight will result in the quakes she’s been squashing down inside of her emerging explosively. She can’t afford to hurt any of the agents on board the plane - or destroy the BUS itself.</p>
<p>Part of the reason she’s so furious is because she’s angry at herself. Her reluctance to use her powers while out in the field, in front of the team, has been hindering her as a field asset. If she’d been willing to use them, then Mike might still be alive, and Coulson might still be with them right now. It’s her fault that he’s been taken. The thought of losing him - the man who has wiggled his way beneath her emotional defenses and become like a father to her, teaching her that she is deserving of love and trust and second chances when she’s only ever thought otherwise because of the torment of her biological father - is utterly unfathomable.</p>
<p>Next time, she won’t be a coward. She has to stop trying to hide parts of herself that she doesn’t like, recognize that this is who she really is, damn the consequences and screw people who refuse to accept her. Skye will do whatever it takes to get Coulson back, even if that means exposing herself and risking her father and Spectre finding her. She’s sick and tired of being afraid. Coulson has always believed in her, so she needs to believe in herself. When she finds Raina and those Centipede soldiers who are holding her SO captive, she is not going to hold back.</p>
<p>Her steadfast determination fueled by her desire for retribution scares Ward, May, and Fitzsimmons, she can tell. They’ve never seen her act like this before, and it’s alarming them. When their team is given a mission by Hand to capture Vanchat, a black market alien metals dealer who sold Centipede Chitauri scraps to make their devices from, Skye throws herself into it. As soon as they have Vanchat in hand, Skye tries to hack into his financials; if she can trace Centipede’s payments, then she might be able to hack into their accounts and discover where the money is being funneled to, to get the locations of their labs. The ridiculous cuff on her ankle blocking her from using SHIELD’s systems is impeding her, though.</p>
<p>Hand refuses to let her in the next briefing. Skye holes up in her bunk and tries to hack into the files in retaliation, smirking smugly as the attempt triggers the bracelet to lock down the entire plane’s systems.</p>
<p>“Just in time,” she says with a sarcastic smile, when Hand slides her door open without knocking. May and Ward are standing just behind her, eyebrows raised but amused glints in their eyes. Peering around Hand, she asks May, sticking her ankle out. “Can you override this?”</p>
<p>“What do you think you're doing?” Hand snaps. She explains her plan to follow the money trail from Vanchat to Centipede, but the senior agent doesn’t budge. “You're the consultant, the one who shot Agent Sitwell.”</p>
<p>“Technically, that wasn't me.”</p>
<p>Hand’s face twists into a glare of disgust. “I want you off this plane immediately.” </p>
<p>Skye stares back at her. Whatever expression is on her face must be terrifying, because May and Ward exchange disquieted looks over Hand’s shoulder. “You can't just kick me off this mission,” she says flatly. “I will do whatever you say. But protocols don’t matter to me. All that matters to me is Coulson.”</p>
<p>“You're a distraction, with barely a level 1 clearance level,” Hand scowls, turning and striding away. “I say that I want you gone.”</p>
<p>Ward snags her arm, sticking up for her by insisting, “Agent Hand, I know Skye's methods are unorthodox, but she's a member of this team, and nobody is better with computers than her. She can help.”</p>
<p>Ignoring him, Hand looks over at the other specialist. “Agent May, your professional opinion... Will this girl be of any use to us on this plane?”</p>
<p>May glances over at Skye. Although Hand will think that her expression is completely impassive and blank, Skye has learned how to read the emotions she expresses in her body language and eyes. And right now, she can see that May is calculating something, slipping into a strategist’s mindset. “No,” is May’s answer.</p>
<p>Hand puffs up, satisfied. She doesn’t realize, though, that May clearly has a plan and it involves Skye being off the plane. “Increase her restriction level. Confiscate her laptop, phone, and consultant’s badge, then have her delivered to debrief.”</p>
<p>“I'll do it. I'm her physical trainer,” May states.</p>
<p>The disbelief on Ward’s face tells Skye that he’s the same as Hand, oblivious that there’s a bigger play at hand here. Once the two of them are alone, May steps into her bunk and helps her pack a small bag of clothes. Her electronics and beloved consultant’s badge, her Thanksgiving gift from Coulson, go into another bag for May to take to Hand. For a couple of minutes, they move around each other in silence, not saying a single thing.</p>
<p>“I think I understand why I’m not of any use on the plane,” Skye finally says, beginning to deduce why precisely May answered no to Hand’s question.</p>
<p>May releases a faint sigh of relief, almost as if she was worried that she would take this personally. “You’re not useful here. Not with all these agents here over your shoulder, monitoring your every move,” she mutters, so it isn’t picked up on any recording devices. “You work best outside of the system. In the shadows, alone. I've seen firsthand what you can do, even without SHIELD resources.” May eyes her cautiously. “You don’t have to assume the worst of me.”</p>
<p>She shakes her head. “I don’t. But I need a way to contact you once I have the intel we need. If Hand is increasing my restriction levels, I’m guessing that means my ankle accessory is going to interfere with a lot more than just access to SHIELD systems.”</p>
<p>“Fitzsimmons have something for you,” May assures, her voice quiet. “Come, I’ll see you off.”</p>
<p>The two scientists do indeed have something for her, and are waiting at the bottom of the lowered ramp when they arrive. The two of them keep glancing about anxiously, shifting like they have something to hide. It’s hilarious how terrible they both are at being inconspicuous. Fitz presses a sandwich wrapped in parchment paper into her hands.</p>
<p>“It's a satellite phone... dampner resistant,” he whispers out of the corner of his mouth. “You get one shot before your bracelet shuts it down. So only call in case of emergency.”</p>
<p>“And whatever you do, don’t try and remove the bracelet,” Jemma hastily adds. Damn, Skye really just wanted to quake it off the second she was off the plane. “If you do, a SHIELD tactical team will be deployed to take you in. Better that Hand thinks you stormed off to have a good sulk, than suspect you’re up to something.”</p>
<p>May clears her throat to catch their attention. “You’ve got twelve minutes before agents arrive to take you for debriefing. Good luck.”</p>
<p>Skye gives a small nod, shouldering her bag and squaring her shoulders as she steps off the ramp, onto the thrumming, hot runway. The vibrations ripple from the ground and up through her legs, energizing her. From now on, she’s on her own for this mission. Before this team, that’s always how she’s thought she works best. She’s learned otherwise. Now, to get their team leader back, she has to strike out alone.</p>
<p>“Skye.” She turns, glimpsing May. Her trainer’s lips are pursed, and for once she’s not even attempting to hide her worry. “Whatever it takes,” she says gravely.</p>
<p>It’s a heavy statement, and Skye suspects that something deeper lies behind it. The way May is regarding her causes her heart to clench and a swooping feeling in her stomach. It’s almost as if the specialist is seeing right through her, and for the first time, is entirely aware of exactly what Skye is fully capable of. May knows that she is hiding something dangerous. She wants Skye to grasp onto whatever it is with both hands and jump into the abyss.</p>
<p>“I’ll get him back,” is her simple, short response. A declaration. A promise.</p>
<p>May swallows. Nods. “Bring him home, Skye.”</p>
<hr/>
<p>Skye isn’t sure whether <i>whatever it takes</i>, as May gave her the permission to do, is a wide enough blanket to encompass crimes such as grand theft auto, staging a traffic accident, shoplifting, breaking and entering, trespassing, impersonating a police officer, impersonating a SHIELD agent, blackmail, resisting arrest, assault of police officers, grand theft auto part 2, not to mention the hacking - okay, it’s a frankly long and disturbing list - but she manages to get a location. She’s on her way there in a Lamborghini she’s ‘borrowed’ from Rathman when she finally fishes out the satellite phone to call Jemma.</p>
<p>“Hello?”</p>
<p>“Jemma, it’s me,” she rushes out. “Put May on.”</p>
<p>There’s static for a couple of seconds, and then May is demanding, “Skye, what have you found?”</p>
<p>“I have a lead on where Coulson’s being held,” she responds immediately, revving the Lambo’s engine to get it up to over a hundred miles her hour when she hits a straight on the highway. “Centipede purchased a small development in the desert, too small to be a lab, but perfect to function as a holding compound. I’m sending you the coordinates now. Bring the team - <i>just</i> the team, not Hand or any back-up.” If it’s just the five of them running the rescue op, it’ll be cleaner… and she’ll be able to use her powers. She’s done with holding back and hiding them. If they find out today, then so be it. “The compound will probably be guarded. Have Fitzsimmons found a way to incapacitate the Centipede soldiers?”</p>
<p>“An injector cuff that uses the port on the Centipede serum delivery device to administer a refined, concentrated dose of dendrotoxin,” Fitz pipes up, indicating that May’s put her on speaker. “But it needs to be locked around the soldier’s forearm, which means you have to get close to them -”</p>
<p>“Which will be difficult, especially if they’re armed,” Jemma continues worriedly. “Are you <i>sure</i> we shouldn’t request back-up, Skye?”</p>
<p>“Any other SHIELD agents will just get in our way,” she dismisses. “My ETA is about 25 minutes, how fast can you be there?”</p>
<p>“50,” Ward says, at the same time May claims, “30. We’ll come in the SUV, Simmons will bring as much emergency medical equipment as she can fit in the trunk. Don’t engage without us.”</p>
<p>Skye can’t give her assurance that she won’t, because she’s not going to wait around for them to arrive if she has a chance to rescue Coulson. “The stupid cuff around my ankle won’t even let me access the internet, let alone satellite imagery, so you’re going to have to tell me the lay-out of the buildings.”</p>
<p>By the time she skids the Lambo to a halt through the gravel-laden sand at the edge of the compound, arid dust rising around her, she knows the blueprints of the little town like the back of her hand. It’s eerily silent and empty, with the only sound being the whistle of the wind and rustle of sand, as she clambers out of the car. She peers around to find that the compound has been populated by creepy ballistics dummies. All of the vibrations of this place are off, with the wind and sand making it difficult to pinpoint where people are located inside of the buildings.</p>
<p>Approaching the nearest shack, she squints through the wooden slats to try and examine the inside. It’s then that she senses the vibrations of somebody behind her. A Centipede soldier with a rifle. She’s not in the right position to quake the weapon apart, so she barely manages to sprint for cover behind the building before bullets are showering the place she was just standing. Rounding the side of the building, Skye plants her feet, readying herself as she gathers her energy and amplifies her own vibrations.</p>
<p>When the soldier appears, she forgoes quaking his firearm, and aims straight for his chest. The shockwave throws him backward - straight into the bonnet of the SHIELD SUV that speeds around the corner. There’s no resounding crack of his spine as she expects, but the unconscious man tumbles over the top of the car before landing in the dust. Skye quickly lowers her arm as the team clamber out frantically, their expressions twisted with concern. They don’t seem to suspect she was the one to throw the guy into the car, fortunately.</p>
<p>“Are you all right?” Jemma frets.</p>
<p>“Fine,” she confirms, and her four teammates relax. “Coulson’s got to be here somewhere. We need to search all the buildings, and get him out before they call for back-up. That means splitting up.” She doesn’t know when or how exactly she ended up being the one issuing the orders, but nobody is objecting. Sensing another soldier running towards them from behind, Skye doesn’t even turn as she adds, “Ward, you wanna take care of the guy behind us?”</p>
<p>Ward wheels around, blinks at her in confusion briefly as he appears to wonder how she knew about the guy without looking, and then gives a firm nod, grabbing the injection cuff from Fitz. “I got him.” He launches into a sprint to tackle the soldier to the ground.</p>
<p>“Let’s move,” May shouts, motioning them into action.</p>
<p>It doesn’t take long for Skye to discover the barn-like building Raina is holding Coulson in. Her jaw drops in absolute horror when upon ramming the door in, she sees her SO beaten, bloody, and bruised, strapped into a huge machine, crying and blubbering as he thrashes against his restraints.</p>
<p>Seconds later, her stomach drops as she realizes that Coulson’s haggard, agonized voice is <i>begging to die</i>. Skye doesn’t have to imagine the amount of pain he has to be in for him to act like this… she’s been in his position before, pleading for an end to it all. Splitting, seething rage burns through her blood like acid.</p>
<p>Raina instantly raises her hands in surrender the second she sees Skye, a spark of fear and <i>recognition</i> in her eyes as she stammers, “It’s for his own good. Let’s not be rash, Dai -”</p>
<p>Skye thrusts her palm out towards the woman, all of her anger flowing out and enacting justice as the quake rams into her like a freight train, knocking her out as she slams into and through the splintering wooden wall. Breathing heavily, she rushes forward to Coulson, not caring at all about the fact that May, who is just behind her, is now clearly aware that she’s not a shade near normal.</p>
<p>The specialist’s face is pale and shaken, but not shocked, confirming to Skye that May’s suspected she’s been hiding something for a while. Probably not something as extreme as earthquake powers. But May isn’t scrambling to point a gun at her, which is a good thing.</p>
<p>“Please let me die!” Coulson continues sobbing, trapped in his mind by the barbaric machine. “Please, please, let me die!”</p>
<p>Tears brimming in her eyes, Skye attempts to pin his flailing limbs down. “Coulson, Coulson,” she tries to draw him back to the present. He doesn’t respond at all to his name, just continues whimpering like an injured animal. “Come back, c’mon, come back, come back,” she urges, her voice breaking. It’s devastating seeing him like this, so broken, when he’s always been a pillar of strength for her. The machine powers down - May’s pulled the power plug out. Coulson’s desperate thrashing stills, leaving him still but panting. “Come back. Coulson, come back!”</p>
<p>His eyes, which he’s been squeezing shut against the pain, crack open ever so slightly to take her in as she grasps his battered hands on top of his chest, over his rapidly pounding heart. He’s wracked with fever, and his skin is boiling hot to her touch. “Skye,” he wheezes, recognizing her through the delirium. She sobs in relief, tears spilling over as she rests her chin on top of their joint hands. He’s back, she got him back, he’s <i>safe</i>. She’s not losing him today. “<i>Skye.</i>” The way he says her name is like a monologue in itself, simultaneously meaning <i>you’re here</i> and <i>you saved me</i> and <i>thank you</i>.</p>
<p>And there’s so much she wants to say too, but she’s trembling, overcome with relief. “<i>Dad</i>,” she cries in response, burying her face in his blood-streaked shirt.</p>
<p>“Skye.” Despite his weakness and poor condition, Coulson works one of his quivering hands free to rest it gently over her head, stroking over her hair. “You came,” he rasps.</p>
<p>“Yeah, yeah, of course I did,” she sniffles. “And - and the others came too. You’re safe now, we’ve got you.”</p>
<p>“Raina,” he starts, alarmed. “Where -”</p>
<p>“Skye knocked her out,” May cuts him off soothingly. She reaches out slowly and then gently rests her own hand over the top of his and Skye’s. “She can’t hurt you anymore, Phil. Skye and I will protect you.”</p>
<p>Fitzsimmons both stagger inside, out of breath from running. They both look relieved as soon as they see Coulson, but Fitz says panickedly, “Their back-up is arriving and Ward can’t fight them all. We have to get out of here!”</p>
<p>May urges them into action once again. As Coulson is too unsteady to stand, let alone walk, Skye and Fitz have to support and half-carry him out of the building. Jemma attempts to do a medical check-up on him as he slumps in their arms. May sweeps the unconscious Raina into a fireman’s carry over her shoulder, as they need to place her under arrest. There definitely won’t be enough space in the SUV, so they’ll need to take the Lambo too.</p>
<p>Ward runs up to them as they reach the cars, shouting in warning, “Incoming!”</p>
<p>There are at least two dozen Centipede soldiers chasing Ward, semi-automatics in their arms, which explains why he hasn’t been able to take them out with hand-to-hand and the injector cuff. Both Ward and May check their Night Night Guns, but they wince, clearly not having enough rounds to down enough of the men to let them make a getaway. They’re vastly outnumbered.</p>
<p>As they get closer, a strange sense of peace and self-assurance washes over Skye. Slipping out from beneath Coulson and letting Jemma take her place as his crutch, she sidesteps through the protective shield May and Ward have formed in front of them. She knows what she has to do. When she glances over her shoulder, Coulson is staring at her with a knowing look, May appears incredibly wary, and the others just look concernedly baffled.</p>
<p>“Stay behind me,” she says calmly, and part of her is alarmed at how confident she sounds, like her voice is no longer her own.</p>
<p>“Skye, what are you doing?” Ward demands.</p>
<p>Her gaze slides over to May. “Whatever it takes,” is her simple, bold response, echoing her mentor’s words to her earlier. “Everything is about to change, but I need you to know, I am still the same person. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner.”</p>
<p>“Skye!?” Jemma cries, confused.</p>
<p>“Hold your positions,” she orders.</p>
<p>They stand their ground. And a few seconds later, when the Centipede soldiers are taking up positions around twenty feet away, raising their guns to aim and start to make demands for the return of Raina, Skye closes her eyes. She draws on the vibrations of her team members behind her, absorbing and channeling them through her, accepting the strength they give her. Flexing her hands, she lifts her arms from her sides to hip-height, palms facing towards the soldiers.</p>
<p>In less than a heartbeat, all of their semi-automatics levitate from their grasps and shake themselves to pieces.</p>
<p>Then, drawing her arms into her chest and clenching her hands back into fists, Skye’s eyes flicker open. The world around her, which is always constantly alive with vibrations, falls silent. And she throws her arms forward, hands spread, letting go of all the anger and helplessness and frustration and hopelessness she’s been imprisoning inside of her.</p>
<p>The shockwave is so powerful when it strikes the Centipede soldiers that it sends them <i>soaring</i>.</p>
<p>Lowering her hands, she exhales slowly, allowing all of the surroundings’ vibrations to flow over her again, like the trickle of a stream over a pebble. Along with the resonant frequencies of the natural world, she feels the vibrations of her friends, giving her an insight as to their reactions to her powers. Shock. Incredulity. Awe. Bewilderment. Mistrust. Fascination. <i>Pride</i>. So many that she can’t pinpoint who is expressing what emotion.</p>
<p>Holding her breath, she turns to face her team, weary and cautious. Coulson looks exhausted, but his smile is brilliant. May, who has now seen her quake a group of people rather than just one individual, appraises her with respect - she’s always respected Skye, as a member of their team and her trainee, but now Skye can tell she sees her as her equal. No more underestimation of her abilities.</p>
<p>Her pseudo-siblings both appear stunned, but amazed; Simmons’ expression speaks of a thousand puzzle pieces suddenly slotting together to give her an explanation of a biological mystery she’s been trying to solve for months, while Fitz just looks excited beyond belief. Unnerved is probably the most accurate choice of word to describe Ward’s reaction, although his blank, wide-eyed look is practically unreadable.</p>
<p>“Bloody fantastic,” Fitz breathes.</p>
<p>Jemma’s eyes shine with wonder. “Skye. That - that was <i>remarkable</i>.”</p>
<p>“Yeah. What exactly was ‘<i>that</i>’?” Ward asks apprehensively.</p>
<p>“I know you must have a lot of questions,” Skye says, shifting on her feet nervously. She’s beginning to feel like a zoo specimen with all their intense staring, and the hairs prickle at the back of her neck with unease. “And I promise, I’ll answer them all to the best of my ability. Later, back on the BUS. Because Coulson needs medical attention, Raina needs to be taken into SHIELD custody, and those soldiers aren’t going to stay down for long.”</p>
<p>“Skye’s right,” Coulson speaks up. It snaps the team’s attention away from her and only him, at where he’s sagging in Fitzsimmons’ grasps. “We’ll talk about this properly on the plane, once we’re alone. Now. I have a very important question that <i>can’t</i> wait until later.” He glances around at the five of them. “Who came here in the Lamborghini, where did they get it from, and who’s driving it back?”</p>
<hr/>
<p>Skye hangs at the back of the lab near her workstation, head bowed and playing with her shaking hands on top of the counter as the rest of the team observe Coulson seeing Hand off the BUS. It’s been heartbreakingly awkward since arriving back at the plane, with the team clearly not knowing what to say to her or how to act given that they barely know any context. She sat silently in this corner with Ward as her shadow as they treated Coulson, and she hasn’t moved since - or said anything to anyone. She thinks that Jemma might be flitting through the medical data she’s taken from Skye over the last few months on her laptop, considering she’s whispering ferociously with Fitz.</p>
<p>The confidence she felt earlier has drained away, and with the adrenalin from the fight being broken down, Skye’s left with a deep ache in her bones. Repetitive use of her powers after spending so long avoiding using them has seriously overworked her. She’s lucky that her arms are still intact, really, as one tiny mistake could have shattered them as she was channeling those vibrations. Fatigue always increases her anxiety, and she has a lot to be anxious about right now.</p>
<p>After Hand departs and Coulson wheels back around, the rest of the team hurries down to talk with him. Skye stands to follow, hesitates, starts again, but then halts in her tracks when Ward shoots her a narrow-eyed glance over May’s shoulder.</p>
<p>“Should we address the elephant on the plane?” he says loudly.</p>
<p>Everybody turns to look at her now. That caged in, zoo animal feeling returns, making her tense. An elephant, indeed. Completely out of place and alien enough in her environment to be ogled and stared at. She averts her eyes, clenching her jaw.</p>
<p>“Yes, I suppose we should talk,” Coulson replies softly. “But first things first - Skye?” </p>
<p>She startles, blinks up at him. “Yeah?”</p>
<p>“How are you feeling?” he asks.</p>
<p>Assuming he means physically, she answers automatically, “Fine.” Then after realizing Coulson and May will see right through that, she corrects herself, admitting sheepishly, “Actually, I’m tired and pretty hungry.” She’s barely eaten at all in the last day, since her SO was kidnapped.</p>
<p>Coulson nods sympathetically. “Let’s head up to the kitchen and grab you something to eat, then we can all get comfortable in the lounge and talk things out.”</p>
<p>“How are you not freaking out right now?” Ward says disbelievingly, his gaze swinging between Coulson and Skye wildly. “She’s got secret superpowers she’s been hiding from us for <i>months!</i>”</p>
<p>“Not from me,” her SO responds with a shrug, motioning for her to lead the way upstairs. “I’ve known about Skye’s abilities since inviting her on as our consultant.”</p>
<p>“Only because you pointed your gun at me and freaked me out enough to quake it apart,” she huffs sulkily, still bitter at how that confrontation went down.</p>
<p>“You attacked each other!?” Fitz questions.</p>
<p>“No, he attacked me. Pulled a firearm on me literally right before persuading me to join the team.”</p>
<p>“I did not <i>attack</i> you.”</p>
<p>“You pulled your gun out and aimed it directly at me.”</p>
<p>“With no intention to pull the trigger.”</p>
<p>“Well, <i>I</i> didn’t know that, did I? You could have been about to pull a movie spy move and blow my brains out to ensure my silence. I had a right to panic.”</p>
<p>“Months later, and you’re still bitter about it? Guys, she’s exaggerating what happened.”</p>
<p>“No, I really don’t think I am, A.C.”</p>
<p>Once she has a sandwich on her plate with some chopped up carrot and cucumber - it’s a toddler’s meal, but she didn’t have to make it, so she’s not complaining - the team don’t seem to have the patience to hold back with their questions anymore. She starts. She tells them about being kidnapped by her psychotic father at the age of fourteen, being exposed to something otherworldly that she was never able to identify that ‘activated’ something buried deep in her DNA. She tells them about Spectre Research Group and their barbaric lab practices, illegal experimentation, and medical torture. She doesn’t go into detail at all, but it still makes them all look sick and pale. She finishes with a quick summary of her escape and her life since, living on the streets as a hacktivist and joining the Rising Tide to try and find more information about what and who she really is.</p>
<p>Coulson chimes in at that point, revealing that they discovered that SHIELD has been interfering with her life since she was a baby and that she was dropped at the orphanage by a SHIELD agent who set up the foster system protocol for her, who Skye believes might be her mother. He also gravely informs them of SHIELD’s possible involvement with Spectre, which is why he hasn’t placed her on the Index, in case Spectre is able to use it to track her down again. </p>
<p>Once her story is finished, she’s almost dead on her feet, but she says that she’ll answer any and all questions they have. Fitzsimmons ask the most questions, curious to an extreme degree, putting forward dozens of them about how her powers work and how her physiology has changed. Skye tries to answer them, but it soon becomes obvious to them that she’s uncomfortable talking about herself like a test subject; May glares at them when they ask about whether she’s been strapped to a seismometer before and she goes instantly quiet, flashing back for a second to when Spectre chained her to one and repeatedly shocked her with a cattleprod to get results.</p>
<p>Ward’s questions are blunt and the hardest to answer, if only because they’re barbed with insults. He’s hurt by the fact she’s kept this a secret from them for so long, and doesn’t appear to care or accept that fear, self-doubt, and anxiety about how it would change their perception of her, were the driving factors. He accuses her of constantly lying and deceiving them, and therefore placing them in danger. That’s the only time that May speaks up, to admonish him for being harsh and judging her for her trauma-based decision-making.</p>
<p>“Well, she needs to be Indexed,” Ward says flippantly. Skye’s heart sinks. He won’t even <i>look</i> at her. “And a proper intake and evaluation assessment needs to be performed on her by somebody at HQ, given that Coulson can’t be objective. She’s dangerous and we need to know how dangerous.”</p>
<p>“Ward, we cannot Index Skye. For one, because we can’t be sure that her file will be safe from her father and Spectre, and Indexing her might place her life in peril if they’re able to track down and capture her,” Coulson responds, his voice firm and unyielding. “And secondly, because Skye doesn’t want to be Indexed, and I am not going to force her to do something she doesn’t want to. She has the potential to be dangerous, yes, because she is incredibly powerful - probably even more powerful than we’ve already seen. But she’s not a danger to <i>us</i>.”</p>
<p>“You have to admit, Agent Ward, both Skye and Coulson have put forward a very compelling argument for her to stay off the Index for now,” Jemma says tentatively. Skye casts her an appreciative glance from across the table, as well as a small smile.</p>
<p>Fitz nods in agreement with his partner. “Yeah, and she doesn’t… <i>need</i>… to be Indexed immediately. Simmons and I can gather the information that would go on her Index file on a private server, we just… wouldn’t be sharing it with SHIELD.”</p>
<p>“SHIELD cannot and will not let a powered individual work as a consultant for a special operative team without them being Indexed,” Ward snaps, slamming his hand down on the table. It makes Skye freeze, fear lashing through her, because he could very well aim that hit at her next time. Ward is angry, and she’s seen him angry before. He can become unstable and aggressive. Fitz slips his hand into hers from where he’s sitting next to her, squeezing it in a small effort to offer some reassurance. “It breaks god knows how many protocols and laws, and not even <i>you</i>, the Director’s golden boy, will be able to get away with that!”</p>
<p>“Coulson is still your commanding officer,” May says, her voice stiff. “And you should still be speaking to him with respect.”</p>
<p>“It’s alright, May. Ward’s fears about breaking protocols are valid, which is why I will go to the Director myself, and make a petition on Skye’s behalf for her to have permission to remain off the Index,” Coulson replies calmly.</p>
<p>“May,” Ward turns to his fellow specialist with a scowl. “You have to agree with me here. We need to hand Skye over to HQ to be Indexed before we can allow her back on the team.”</p>
<p>Silence falls for a good half a minute, in which May examines Skye scrutinizingly. She peers across the countertop at her physical trainer and maintains eye contact as much as possible, knowing that May will be able to read what she’s feeling from it. “Skye’s powers, as turbulent though they appear to be, have not interfered with any of our missions or her work before, from what I understand. She only uses them in emergency situations, usually to protect herself or us. We all owe her our lives several times over. She essentially saved Coulson on her own today. She deserves our trust.” She pauses, moving her gaze steadily over each of their team members to gauge their reactions to her saying this. She even offers Skye the tiniest of reassuring smiles, before finishing in a steady voice, “I trust her. If she doesn’t want to be Indexed, then she shouldn’t be. She is a valued member of this team, and we need her on the BUS. She can’t be here if she’s being held by SHIELD for Index evaluation at the Sandbox. And if we did send her there, there’s no telling as to whether we would ever get her back. She belongs here with us, so here is where she’ll stay.”</p>
<p>Ward throws his hands up in frustration. All Skye sees is two hands swiping through the air in a violent motion inches away from her face. She instinctively flinches and ducks her head behind Fitz’s shoulder to shield herself before she can stop herself, heart hammering in her chest painfully. A small tremor rattles through the table and travels through the floor, making the dirty, empty glasses from earlier on top of the minibar clink. Everything goes hazy for a moment, past blending into the present, so she recoils once again when she feels a broad hand settle in her back and begin rubbing up and down soothingly.</p>
<p>When she risks a peek up, she sees that May has pulled Ward to the side, away from the rest of them, and is laying into him judging by her deadly expression. Coulson is the one rubbing her back concernedly, standing behind her, while Jemma has squeezed in on her other side to provide some silent support without overwhelming her.</p>
<p>Breathing out, Skye rests her forehead on Fitz’s shoulder and apologizes quietly, “I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to do that.” And then frantically to Fitzsimmons, in case they were panicked by the tiny quake, “I usually have much better control, Coulson can vouch for me.”</p>
<p>“You thought Ward was going to hit you, I think that warranted that reaction,” Fitz mutters. “Should have knocked him out of his chair onto his arse.”</p>
<p>“I wouldn’t ever use my powers against any of you, without a very good reason,” she promises solemnly.</p>
<p>“We can’t believe that,” Ward says, storming back over. He looks slightly less incensed than before - more irritated that May chewed him out, than anything else. Turning to fully face Coulson, he states, “Sir, I think Skye could stay in the Cage until you’ve spoken to Director Fury as you said you would and determined a course of action for what your process of evaluating her is going to be. For all we know, Skye isn’t even human, so she can’t be allowed to wander the plane freely until certain tests have been done to ensure she isn’t a threat.”</p>
<p>Dread stabs into her heart at the idea of more tests, but she’s quick to retort, “I told you before that I’m still mostly human, just with extra genes and macromolecules.”</p>
<p>“Potentially alien genes and macromolecules,” Ward fires back. “And whenever we’ve ever come across something alien, it’s ended <i>badly</i>.”</p>
<p>“Easy on the xenophobia there, Ward,” Jemma scowls.</p>
<p>He quirks an eyebrow at her. “Given that you were the one infected with the deadly alien virus, I would have thought you would understand my caution.”</p>
<p>“Skye isn’t a virus. She’s our <i>friend</i>,” Fitz scowls at him.</p>
<p>“She’s a twenty-year-old criminal street kid we’ve barely known for three months,” Ward counters, “who it turns out has been keeping the biggest part of her life secret from us. Because she <i>knew</i> we would see her as dangerous because of it, and that says enough in itself.”</p>
<p>“Maybe she was right to keep it a secret given how this is how you’re reacting,” Jemma bristles in her defense.</p>
<p>Ward glowers at them both, crossing his arms stiffly, before focusing back on Coulson. “I am telling you as the person who was chosen to be this team’s specialist - May was originally chosen just to fly the BUS, don’t think I’ve forgotten that! - Skye is an unknown. She needs to be separated from the rest of us until we’ve figured out more about what she is and what she can do.” When Fitzsimmons start protesting, he holds up a hand and cuts them off forcefully, “I don’t care that she’s been living with us for months. This is SHIELD protocol I’m talking about, and we might be our own unit, but we are still SHIELD.”</p>
<p>Skye sees May and Coulson exchange troubled looks out of the corner of her eye. It’s because Ward is right, and the SHIELD rules state that as an un-Indexed powered individual, she should be quarantined away from civilians and agents until they’ve determined a plan of action for processing her. She may be a consultant for a SHIELD team, but that still stands. As her SO, Coulson is in charge of her, which means he’s the one making the plan. Protocol dictates he has to Index her, but he has to get permission from higher-ups if he’s not going to do that.</p>
<p>“It’s fine,” she sighs resignedly, before anybody else can speak. “I’ll stay in the Cage, it’s fine.”</p>
<p>Coulson looks stricken. “That’s not fair on you.”</p>
<p>“No, what’s not fair is that I’ve put you in this position in the first place,” she says sadly, shaking her head. “I’ve already forced you to break so many SHIELD rules for me. Ward is just trying to do the right thing and stop you from breaking another.” Gently nudging Jemma out of her way, she slides off the couch, hugging herself and holding back her tears. This feels an awful lot like rejection, even though she’s technically self-exiling herself. “I’ll just… grab some clothes and stuff from my bunk and move into the Cage.”</p>
<p>Frigid silence follows her announced decision. Both Fitzsimmons appear pained and bemused as to why she’s giving in to Ward’s outrageous demands. But really, they’re not so outrageous. The reason she knows they’re not is because May is regarding her with a stoic expression, her eyes dull. May doesn’t want to say aloud in front of Coulson and the scientists that she agrees with Ward, as they’ll blow up at her, but if she does, then Skye knows that what he’s saying is the right thing to do. May trusts her, and she trusts May.</p>
<p>Coulson, meanwhile, just looks completely defeated. She knows it’s because he promised her back when they were talking about when she would tell the team about her powers and past, he told her that they would react well - kindly, and with understanding and patience. That’s not happening, and he feels terrible guilt over it.</p>
<p>“I’ll help you,” he says quietly.</p>
<p>She has barely any possessions, so it doesn’t take long to pick out a few items and shove them into a bag to transport the short distance to the Cage. Coulson remains despondently silent as she gathers a throw pillow and her comforter in her arms, refusing to abandon those comforts as she’s locked up in the Vibranium alloy box. It’s not the barren, restrictive environment inside the Cage that she’s dreading, though. It’s the isolation. She’s grown used to having the team around her constantly over the last few months; their ever-present vibrations have become her new background noise, but it’s background noise that she will instantly feel the absence of as soon as it’s missing.</p>
<p>When they shuffle into the Cage, May is already there, having changed the sheets on the cot. She’s gone and collected the fluffy blanket Skye keeps in the footwell of the SUV that she clings to for reassurance whenever taking alone time. The cardboard box that was in here before, to function as a table, has been replaced with a plastic storage box. Her laptop and beloved badge that was confiscated from her by Hand sit on top of it. They’re trying to make her new prison as homely as possible for her. It’ll be a gilded cage, but a cage nonetheless.</p>
<p>“Is there anything else you’ll need?” May asks gently.</p>
<p>Skye shakes her head. She sits down in the cot with a thump, yanking her fluffy blanket into her arms to cuddle it. Her badge is clutched frantically between her hands, acting as an emotional anchor, a reminder that she is still a part of this team and that Coulson is not going to throw her out. She doesn’t want to cry. She really, really doesn’t want to cry. But if May and Coulson keep treating her like she’s delicate, then it’s going to break her. Because she secretly wants to be coddled, wants her craving for affection to be indulged.</p>
<p>“Anything else you <i>want?</i>” Coulson presses, his hand a warm weight on her shoulder.</p>
<p><i>To not be alone. To be hugged. To know that everything will be okay again soon.</i> “I don’t like it when it’s cold,” she eventually tells him. “The Spectre lab was always freezing. Please don’t let it be cold in here.”</p>
<p>“Okay, I’ll speak to Fitz about it,” he says kindly. “He’ll probably be able to make a remote so you can control the heating and air-con in here yourself. Is there anything else?”</p>
<p>She fumbles with her hands. “It’s stupid.”</p>
<p>“It’s not stupid, Skye,” May murmurs, stroking over her hair tenderly. “Not if it’s important to you.”</p>
<p>She rubs at her eyes with her knuckles when they start to feel wet. She feels like a lost little girl without a family or a home again, and it’s <i>awful</i>. But what’s more terrible is that this is all just reminding her of when she was a helpless, hopeless kid imprisoned in a nightmare of scalpels and needles and pain. No dawn in sight, just a pitch-black horizon occasionally punctured with crimson blood. It’s <i>soul crushing</i>.</p>
<p>“Can you please let me control the lights too?” she requests, her voice a mere whisper. “I’m scared of the dark. I don’t wanna be trapped in here stuck in the dark.”</p>
<p>“Oh, sweetheart.” Coulson collapses down on the cot beside Skye and sweeps her into an embrace. “We’ll make sure you have some flashlights, battery and wind-up, so you never have to be in the dark if you don’t want to be, okay? How about I leave you a radio too. That way if you ever need or want anything, food or water or another blanket or torch, or even just somebody to talk to, you can just ask. Any time, even if it’s in the middle of the night.”</p>
<p>She clings to him desperately, touch-starved. “How long do I have to be in here?”</p>
<p>Coulson hesitates, looking over to May.</p>
<p>“Agent Hand said that Fury is currently at New York HQ with Hill,” she reports. “Should take us around twelve hours to fly there. I’ll contact Fury and set up a meeting so you can walk off the plane and into his office the moment we hit the ground.”</p>
<p>“Maybe a day or two,” her SO concludes from that explanation.</p>
<p>A day or two, she can manage that. She can cope with that. She nods, trying to put on a brave face. But she doesn’t say anything else. She’s too tired to concentrate on making conversation.</p>
<p>“Hey.” Coulson brushes a thumb over her forehead tenderly, and then, pulling back from their hug, he reaches down between them where her legs are curled up to tap on the internet nanny bracelet encasing her ankle. “I think it’s time that we remove this. Making you keep wearing it would be a lousy way to thank you for being the mastermind behind my rescue, huh?” he attempts to joke. Leaning down, he states clearly, “Disengage bracelet.”</p>
<p>The band clicks open with a beep. She blinks in utter disbelief. Those two words were all that he had to say this entire time?</p>
<p>“Thought you’d like that,” Coulson grins.</p>
<p>May gives him a light shove. “Stop teasing her, Phil.”</p>
<p>Sensing her exhaustion, May and Coulson don’t force her to talk, just sitting either side of her where she’s curled up wrapped in her blankets. Skye nearly falls asleep huddled up to her SO’s side when May starts combing her fingers through her hair. They stay with her for as long as they can, before May has to leave to fly the plane and Coulson has to debrief the rest of the team on the day’s rescue mission. She can sense that they’re reluctant to leave her from their stressed-out vibrations, so she pretends to fall asleep, knowing it will make it easier on them both. Coulson brushes a kiss against her forehead and May tucks her blanket around her before they quietly exit.</p>
<p>It’s only once she’s alone that she allows her tears of grief to fall.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>next update: 6th Dec</p>
<p>tumblr: https://vulpeculaanser.tumblr.com/<br/>feel free to harass me with your questions and scream at me</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Chapter 7</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p><b>Important Notice</b>: Those of you who follow me on Tumblr will already know this, but last week I was assigned to a new research project in the lab I work in that starts very soon, which means that I'm barely going to have any time to write or edit this fic. While I do hope to work on it during my spare time, there's no way I'm going to be able to maintain the two-week upload schedule when my work schedule is so packed. That means that for now, this fic will be going on hiatus. That could be for a single month, up to possibly three. I'm really sorry - I know a lot of you will be disappointed. But my research paper and work comes first. I'll be posting writing and life updates on my Tumblr with occasional snippets and sneak peeks, so I won't be completely gone. Hopefully you guys can forgive me.</p>
<p>Extra trigger warnings for this chapter are in the end notes to avoid spoilers.</p>
<p>Thank you all so much for your continued support xx</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Skye barely sleeps. Her nightmares lurk in the shadows, ready to snap at her heels the moment she lets her guard down. She’s practiced muffling her screaming in her pillows at this point, though, so she hopefully doesn’t wake anybody up. But the Cage feels like a void that’s slowly smothering her.</p>
<p>A good three-quarters of the way through the night, she’s jolted awake by knocking on the door. This is the fourth time she’s woken up, although it’s the first time an external force was the one causing it. Sweating and trembling all over, her breathing heavy, Skye quickly realises that everything around her is lightly shaking. She can’t remember what she was dreaming about, unlike the other three times she awoke, but it must have been terrifying - probably one of her worst memories - because her heart is pounding in her chest painfully.</p>
<p>Clamping down on her powers in embarrassment, and hoping that she hasn’t been quaking the entire plane, she tentatively calls out, “Who is it?”</p>
<p>“It’s me,” Jemma’s muffled voice replies, soft and worried. “Did I wake you? Sorry, I - I don’t want to overstep, but I was going to the bathroom and - well, the Cage door was sort of… rattling? I just wanted to check you’re okay.”</p>
<p>Skye shakes her head, aghast at herself. The Cage is made out of a Vibranium alloy and should swallow up all of her vibrations, but she’s powerful enough to vibrate the door anyway, even in her sleep. Maybe Ward is right and she <i>is</i> a danger to the team… because yes, she would never think of hurting them purposefully, but she could cause accidental harm. She shakes her head dazedly. No, that’s just her insecurities rearing her head. She has got control, even when she hasn’t, because that’s when she turns her powers inwards. Rattling a door does not mean she is a threat to the team’s safety.</p>
<p>“Sorry,” she croaks out. “Bad dream. Thanks for - for waking me up. I’m - I’m good.”</p>
<p>A brief, silent pause, and Skye wonders if Jemma has walked away, until the biochemist asks hesitantly, “Do you want me to come in and sit with you? I don’t mind.”</p>
<p>“No,” she instantly replies, heat flushing her cheeks. “I don’t want you to lose any sleep because of me. It’s fine, Jem, I’ll just… do some reading or something until I’m tired again.”</p>
<p>“Are you sure? If you’re upset -”</p>
<p>“I’m not upset,” she insists. “I can’t even remember what I was dreaming about that time.”</p>
<p>A beat and then a sad, repeated, “‘That time’?”</p>
<p>Clenching her jaw and cursing her own stupid, sleep-deprived, and failing brain-to-mouth filter, Skye lies, “As in, tonight. I promise, Jemma, I’m okay.” When her friend doesn’t immediately reply, she sighs, “You don’t believe me, do you?”</p>
<p>“Not in the slightest. Making a promise while also lying means they sort of cancel each other out, Skye. If you need some sleeping aids, I can go down to the lab and grab something for you.”</p>
<p>“I’m not lying, I really am okay.” Clarifying that as a truth does not require her to additionally lie, thankfully. “And I don’t need to be sedated or anything, those drugs always just make me sick. Please just go back to bed. I’ll just feel more guilty keeping you awake when you need your sleep to make sure you can concentrate in the lab.”</p>
<p>“Alright,” Jemma finally responds, sounding reluctant but resigned. “But please try and get back to sleep yourself. Doctor’s orders.”</p>
<p>“As you wish, Dr Simmons,” Skye says, actually having no intention of falling asleep again, knowing the nightmares aren’t going to fade. “Goodnight.”</p>
<p>“Goodnight.”</p>
<p>Jemma walks away.</p>
<p>Skye finds herself wishing that she was brave enough to agree to her offer to stay, the silence her friend leaves behind suddenly feeling incredibly lonely. She slides off the cot so she’s sitting on the cold floor and doesn’t fall back to sleep, pushing her fingernails into her palms deep enough to sting whenever her eyes start to drift shut. She refuses to dream again.</p>
<p>In the end, she spends one terrible, restless day and another haunted night in the cell before the BUS lands in New York.</p>
<p>One of the team members - excluding Ward - always keeps her company during daylight hours, but quite a few times she finds herself curling up on the cot and falling silent, dropping into deep thought. It makes her balance during tai chi with May absolutely shit; she falls flat on her face at least twice. Skye actually ends up dissociating half of the day away, probably a side effect of her lack of sleep; while she hates losing track of time, it does mean that she doesn’t have enough of it to work herself into a panic attack, fortunately. May is the one who always comes and sits with her when her breathing grows shallow and labored.</p>
<p>“Skye?”</p>
<p>She blinks tiredly, catching sight of the specialist watching her. Observing her. Her eyes crinkled ever so slightly with visible sadness.</p>
<p>“Sorry, did you say something?” she asks, her own voice sounding like it’s coming from underwater. She thinks May might have been discussing tactical awareness with her - well, as much as a discussion can occur when there’s only really one participant.</p>
<p>“Nothing important,” May replies softly. “Don’t worry, <i>tiánxīn.</i>”</p>
<p>“I - I’m <i>trying</i> to pay attention, I swear -”</p>
<p>“It’s okay. We can save the training for another day.” And she lets Skye rest her head on her lap and strokes her hair as she mentally drifts back into the chasm again.</p>
<p>When she’s not spaced out, she paces. Incessantly. If anybody is watching her on the CCTV, they’re probably dizzy from watching her. Part of the pacing is so she can feel the vibrations of her footsteps being swallowed up by the Vibranium floor, because she has to admit, she is a little intrigued by its properties. Hunger cramps her stomach, but her appetite is basically non-existent because of her anxiety. Coulson does try at first to get her to choke down some soup, but May gets him to stop, understanding without Skye having to tell her that she’ll end up vomiting if anything settles in her stomach other than water.</p>
<p>After the plane touches down and parks up on day 2 of Cage isolation, Coulson and May leave for their meeting with Director Fury, although they do pop in briefly to reassure her that everything will be fine and they’ll be back as soon as possible. Skye doesn’t know if she believes him. She can <i>hope</i> that everything will turn out okay, but that doesn’t mean she’s going to rely on it. Already, contingency plans are being cooked up by her paranoid brain. Her unease only increases when they inform her that Ward will be in charge while they’re gone.</p>
<p>Soon after they depart, Fitzsimmons drag her out of the Cage for a couple of tests. They’ve already discussed it yesterday, but given that she was dissociated for half of it, she’s forgotten what she’s agreed to. She spends a horrible morning being prodded and poked.</p>
<p>Skye knows that she should be thankful to them for getting her out of the metal box in the first place by insisting to Ward that she needs to be in the lab, but after being plagued by nightmares for the past two nights about her father and Spectre, she’s too on edge to relax. They seem to realize she’s not in a talking mood, though, but also that she despises the silence, because the two scientists ramble about the upgrades they’ve made to the Night Night Guns recently between asking her questions.</p>
<p>“What do they feel like?” Jemma asks, intrigued. “Your powers?”</p>
<p>“Um, it’s hard to describe,” Skye muses, frowning as she tries to think of a way to put it into words. She’s been living with her powers for a quarter of her life now and has just… got used to them. Honestly, at this point, she can’t really remember <i>not</i> having her powers. They’re a part of her, and even though she knows she didn’t have them before she was ‘activated’, she feels like they’ve always been hidden within her. “It’s like… okay, Coulson had a good analogy once for it, when I channeled my powers through him for a moment. He said it’s like a thousand bees. They’re trapped inside of this hole that’s been carved out inside my chest. They’re constantly buzzing and making the rest of my body buzz too. But then the rest of the world is humming as well, everything at different resonant frequencies.”</p>
<p>Fitz stares at her with wide eyes. “That’s got to be so overwhelming.”</p>
<p>She rubs the back of her neck, giving a small, helpless shrug. “It was at first, sure. Everything felt super wrong and was deafeningly loud. I got migraines all the time. But now it’s… um…” Her frown deepens as she tries to find an accurate description. “It’s sort of like… background white noise? Turned on all the time. Now I’ve adjusted to having my powers and I can control the vibrations, I can tune them out.”</p>
<p>“What happens when you can’t?” Jemma questions, sounding worried.</p>
<p>Skye traces unfathomable shapes and code on her thighs with shaking fingers. “You’re asking the wrong question. You should be asking <i>why</i> that happens.”</p>
<p>“Well, then, why?”</p>
<p>“I get angry, or scared, or upset. My powers are very strongly linked to my emotions. I lose control of the vibrations when my feelings become too much to process. Three things can happen then. One: the vibrations swallow me up to the point where I space out completely and dissociate. Two: the vibrations give me sensory overload and I have a panic attack. Or three… all of the vibrations building up inside of me explode out all at once, and I trigger an earthquake.”</p>
<p>“How big of an earthquake?” Fitz eyes her with both nervousness and awe.</p>
<p>“I’ve hit 8.0 on the Richter Scale before, apparently.”</p>
<p>“Is there a limit? Do you think you could go bigger?”</p>
<p>“Never measured my limits,” she answers simply. At the Spectre lab, they always struck her with a cattle prod or drugged her to high hell whenever she risked creating seismic activity powerful enough to threaten the earthquake-resistant facility, but she doesn’t admit that aloud. “It’s been a while since I’ve made any huge earthquakes though, so I’m a bit out of practice and overextend myself quickly. But if I built some stamina back up… yeah. Not sure what my limit would be.”</p>
<p>“You could have Avengers level powers,” the engineer enthuses.</p>
<p>Jemma shoots him an incredulous look. “Fitz, I think we should probably keep in mind the unstable nature of Skye’s powers, given that she can <i>literally create seismic shift events</i>.”</p>
<p>“They’re not unstable,” Fitz huffs. “Skye has great control over them.” He glances over at her, insisting in a whisper, “Avengers level. I’m serious.”</p>
<p>It forces her to crack a smile. “I appreciate the compliment, but I don’t really think I’m Avengers material, Fitz. At least, not yet, anyway. Sure, the Avengers could probably provide the protection I need, but I don’t want to be a public figure. Being an Avenger means doing press, stepping into the spotlight. I’ve never wanted to be a superhero, and I don’t think I could mentally survive being famous. Besides, you guys are my team. My family, now. I don’t think I would get to see any of you often if I joined the Avengers, and I’ve got used to living with you all and having you around.”</p>
<p>“Time for samples!” Jemma announces brightly, turning around with a buccal swab kit in one hand and a blood collection kit in the other.</p>
<p>Skye’s smile and heart drop like stones in a pond.</p>
<p>“Oh, Skye, please don’t look at me like that,” the biochemist sighs, her enthusiasm fading within seconds at the expression on her face.</p>
<p>“Like what?”</p>
<p>“Like a sad little kicked puppy,” Jemma pouts. “It won’t hurt, I promise, and I’ll make it quick.”</p>
<p>They take blood from the crook of her elbow and gently scrape the inside of her cheeks to get cells for DNA analysis. The entire time, she stares blankly at the floor, trying not to be dragged down into a tempest of her most traumatic memories. Her SHIELD badge is clutched nervously in her hands, her fingers pressed into the Vibranium-alloy as a desperate attempt to keep herself grounded and calm. Fitzsimmons mean well as they fill the science with excited babbles about how unique her genome appears to be as they sequence it with state-of-the-art machinery, but it just reminds her of the geneticists at Spectre who had been so fascinated with her DNA that they’d done unspeakable experiments with it. The geneticists who, as far as she’s aware, were and possibly still are working for SHIELD.</p>
<p>When Fitz approaches her and asks if he can run an EEG to measure her brainwave patterns while using her powers to vibrate a metal rod attached to a vibration meter, her stomach swoops with nausea.</p>
<p>“I’d like to go back to the Cage, please,” she whispers, wanting to be anywhere but the lab with its bright white lights, gleaming metal surfaces, and the sharp, burning scent of disinfectant.</p>
<p>Jemma stops with the pipetting she’s doing immediately, rubbing Skye’s back soothingly as she helps her off her stool. She’s been sitting on it for so long now that pins and needles shoot up her feet and through her calves, making her unsteady. Fitz back off slowly with an apologetic expression for having upset her. For a brief second, Skye tenses again when Jemma reaches behind her lab bench to grab something; she exhales in relief when it turns out to be one of her old Academy sweaters, which she passes over to Skye to wear. She pulls it on over her head, taking comfort in the fact that it smells like the biochemist’s honeysuckle and jasmine perfume, rather than awful disinfectant.</p>
<p>“Let’s grab you some breakfast first,” Jemma says, in a falsely cheerful voice.</p>
<p>Skye drops her head into her hands tiredly. “Jemma, no offense, but I’m really not up for having you measure my metabolism right now.”</p>
<p>Ward strides in from the cargo bay, his voice cold and eyes flashing as he barks, “You’ll be up for whatever tests Fitzsimmons need to perform to complete your Index file.”</p>
<p>Tensing her shoulders at his hostility, Skye mumbles weakly, “I’m not going on the Index,” at the same time Fitz crosses the room to stand protectively in front of her, snapping at him, “We’re not putting her on the Index.”</p>
<p>Jemma nods in agreement with her partner, her hand on Skye’s back moving up to squeeze her shoulder in an open show of support. “Coulson and May told us to keep everything on our private server until a decision is made by Director Fury. They also told us that we shouldn’t pressure Skye into doing anything she doesn’t want to.”</p>
<p>“What does it matter what she <i>wants</i>, when you need test results to tell us what she is?” Ward growls. He tosses them all spiteful glares before swiping his Night Night Gun (which they’re thinking of officially renaming ICERs) which he dropped off for maintenance from the counter, and storming out. Skye can’t believe that basically overnight, he’s switched to hating her.</p>
<p>As soon as he’s gone, Jemma turns to her and suggests, “Ignore him, Skye.”</p>
<p>Fitz nods vehemently. “Yeah, he’s being a piss-poor teammate and judgemental git. He just needs to get over himself.”</p>
<p>She forces herself to crack a small smile at them both, if only because she can tell that they’re trying to be extra supportive and nice to her. Fitz plies her with his mum’s homemade shortbread and a bottle of Gatorade for her ‘breakfast’, ignoring Jemma’s sigh of exasperation over how unhealthy it is. The sugar and electrolytes do help her feel steadier on her feet despite her tiredness. Hoping that a nap might alleviate the exhaustion weighing down her limbs and head, she heads back to the Cage.</p>
<p>On her way there, she thinks she passes Ward pacing the other side of the living quarters feverishly, muttering into his phone with a strained expression. Alarm streaking through her at the idea of Ward telling somebody about her and her powers without her permission, she tries to eavesdrop. He catches sight of her though, and lowers his phone, glaring at her.</p>
<p>“What, a guy can’t even order a pizza in privacy anymore?” he snarls.</p>
<p>She backs away, mumbling an apology and quickly retreating into the Cage. Once she’s there, though, no amount of meditation, tai chi, or breathing exercises seems to soothe her racing heart. Her pre-anxiety attack symptoms are building, and there’s no way she can stop them. She just can’t relax without knowing what’s going on regarding her Indexing situation - and certainly not with <i>Ward</i> in charge of her, when he’s behaving the way he is right now towards her. Curling up in a ball on the cot, she clutches her fluffy blanket like it’s her lifeline and wishes that May and Coulson were here with her. They would know how to calm her down.</p>
<p>Although Skye doesn’t manage to get to sleep, she drifts and rests, alternating between playing on her laptop and lying with her eyes shut. Now Coulson has removed the cuff that restricted her access to SHIELD’s systems, she can poke around at the encryption and security, integrate some of her own code into their team’s private server. She’s eager to construct some stronger firewalls for it, mostly because of the fact that it’s where Fitzsimmons will be storing all of their research data on her powers, and she can’t have Spectre hacking it and stealing it. It will take some time, but it will be worth it.</p>
<p>She’s part of the way through editing the current firewall’s code to close a backdoor she’s just discovered that leaves their data vulnerable, when the Cage door slams open, no knock sounding to announce the person’s entrance. Skye jumps in astonishment, immediately glancing up from her screen.</p>
<p>Ward peers down at her with a look on his face that can only be described as both calculating and distrustful. Running his eyes over her, he asks abruptly, “Can you work-out in those clothes?” Thrown by the question, Skye nods, and before she can ask why, Ward is ripping her blanket away from her viciously. “Good. Cargo hold in five, be ready to spar.”</p>
<p>Her heart leaps into her throat. “You can’t be serious,” she says, voice trembling with horror. She is not going to fight Ward in some twisted training exercise as a test. Not when she knows he’s not going to hold back on her, and is most likely going to try and provoke her into using her powers against him. “Do May and Coulson -”</p>
<p>“They’re not here, I’m in charge,” Ward cuts her off coldly. “May says you’re trained to the point where she wants you joining me and her in the field. I want to see what you can do and why she thinks you’re ready, if she’s expecting me to place my life in your hands.”</p>
<p>Ward turns on his heel and exits before she can lodge another protest. Blood drains from her face, leaving her pale, and sick with dizziness and nausea. There’s really no way she’s getting out of this. She and Fitzsimmons are under Ward’s command for as long as May and Coulson aren’t on the plane; they won’t be returning for at least another couple of hours. She has no choice but to walk out onto the mats and face off against Ward - and hope that she gets through it without needing to use her powers, Fitzsimmons don’t interfere and get hurt, and her SO doesn’t flay the specialist or have him removed from their team for his behavior when he returns. Like Fitz said before, Ward just needs time to get over himself. Then everything will settle. Even though he’s being an asshole to her right now, Skye can’t imagine their team without him.</p>
<p>Five minutes later, she walks out of the Cage with her head held high and a confident skip in her step. Skye might be losing it in her mind, but she will not outwardly show weakness to Ward. Her heart pounds with anxiety as she begins going through a series of stretches May taught her to loosen and warm her muscles before sparring. No doubt she’ll be sore and aching by the time they finish, but she wants to minimize the risk of any strains. </p>
<p>She examines her wrists carefully. While they have fully healed at this point from the last time she injured them, Jemma told her that the new soft bone that’s recently filled in the microfractures will make her forearms weak and susceptible to future breaks, if she’s not careful with them. Maybe she should talk to Fitz about those compressed microfibre braces she used when her arms were healing. As they helped absorb some of the vibrations from her skin, getting those braces made into gauntlets of some kind could help her better channel her powers.</p>
<p>It doesn’t take long, of course, for the two scientists to notice her presence in the cargo hold since it’s right outside the lab, and they hurry out with expressions of concern and bemusement. Jemma stops dead as soon as she sees Skye stretching, and when Ward starts down the spiral staircase while wrapping his hands, her worry swiftly morphs into horror. Fitz catches on only a second later, and instantly throws his arms up to press the balls of his palms into his forehead in distress.</p>
<p>“Ward, no,” Jemma insists, trying to snag Skye’s wrist and drag her away. “Coulson and May will be so mad -”</p>
<p>“They can be as mad as they want,” Ward interrupts. “I want to see Skye’s fighting skills and she’s <i>indulging me</i>.” He pins her another shrewd look. Slipping into stance, the specialist raises his fists. “Square up, rookie.”</p>
<p>“<i>Skye</i>,” Fitz says beggingly, a one-worded plea for her to try and put a stop to this nonsense.</p>
<p>She swallows. “Keep Jemma out of the way, I don’t want either of you getting hurt,” she murmurs. And then raises her eyebrows pointedly, flicking her gaze down to his phone, which he’s grasping in his hand. It’s a silent request for him to call either May or Coulson to inform them of what’s happening so they’ll return as quickly as possible.</p>
<p>Barely a heartbeat after she turns back to Ward, the specialist is lunging forward with a strike aimed at her throat. Skye immediately ducks, her instincts kicking in and vibrations singing. Before Ward can regain his balance, she flips him over her shoulder so he lands heavily on his back behind her. Jemma releases a little yelp of shock, covering her mouth as he impacts with the floor; the two scientists appraise Skye with wide eyes, as they’ve never seen her fight before.</p>
<p>Rolling her shoulders back, she breathes steadily. “I’m no rookie,” she warns. “I had experience in self-defense even before May started training me. I spent five years on the run, being hunted, and the backstreets of downtown LA aren’t exactly Disneyland for a homeless teenager. I learned how to fight properly without my powers and since then, May has made sure I know exactly how to take care of myself.”</p>
<p>“Then don’t expect me to hold back,” Ward hisses, leaping back to his feet.</p>
<p>Her powers are buzzing, desperate to be released in response to her adrenaline surge, but she refuses to let the quakes out. Instead, Skye bounces on the balls of her feet and flexes her hands, ready for Ward to attack her again. If he wants a fight, then she’ll give him one.</p>
<p>It doesn’t take very long for them to fall into a deadly dance, circling each other on the mats. May’s voice echoes in her head, instructing her to take a measure of her opponent and calculate his weaknesses. Ward’s main weakness at the moment is his anger, which is causing him to lose tactical focus; his footwork is careless, and his punches are sloppy. There’s no rhythm or pattern to Ward’s actions, which means that she can’t predict his movement, but that doesn’t matter. His rising fury at the fact he can’t seem to properly land a hit on her is making him hurl his weight around, throwing him constantly off balance.</p>
<p>“Stop dodging!” Ward growls, wiping away sweat from exertion that’s beaded on his brow. “You can’t always go on the defensive in the field! It’s <i>weak!</i>”</p>
<p>He lances forward and for a brief couple of seconds, manages to grab her in a chokehold. His arm presses on her throat, restricting her oxygen. It’s a much tighter hold than one would usually use while sparring, and she can’t help but panic as black spots appear in her vision. Is Ward trying to choke her unconscious? Why is he being so <i>violent?</i> Her powers bubble to the surface in response to her fear, wanting to erupt out of her in a concussive blast to knock Ward away from her.</p>
<p>That must be what Ward wants, she realizes. She wants her to lose control of her powers. He’s pushing her to see what her limits are. And maybe there’s a part of him that wants her to accidentally hurt him, to prove to Fitzsimmons, May, and Coulson that she’s as dangerous to the team as he claims she might be.</p>
<p>She’s <i>more</i> dangerous than Ward could ever begin to understand, but she’s not going to let him goad her into losing control. Restraining her powers inside of her until the point where she can feel the throbbing pain of her arms starting to bruise, Skye twists in his grasp until she manages to hook her foot behind his left calf. She then works her wrists beneath his arms, bracing them there to pry them away from her neck.</p>
<p>With one giant explosion of energy, she extends her knee to kick his leg out from beneath him, at the same time as wrenching her arms forward. As he starts to drop, she then whips her right elbow back into his chest, directly below his sternum. It sends the specialist collapses down onto the floor in a heap, winded and dazed.</p>
<p>“How’s that for weak?” she pants, staring down at him triumphantly.</p>
<p>From her position, it looks like his hard fall on the floor has dislocated his left shoulder, even with the mats cushioning him. Ward grips his left arm, his expression mangled with pain as he glowers up at her. He’s done - there’s no way he can get back up and fight her another round. Exhaling shakily, Skye turns away from him to grab a towel from where it’s lying on top of one of the cargo crates.</p>
<p>She senses Ward’s next movement a millisecond before Jemma and Fitz shriek at her to watch out. The vibrations crash into her like a tidal wave, adrenalin spiking and rushing through her like burning acid. The resonant frequency of something metallic flies towards her. Blood roaring in her ears, Skye turns in a flash. Her hand snaps up to catch the blade that Ward’s thrown at her shoulder. Its tip stops a mere couple of <i>inches</i> away from tearing through her shirt and breaking skin. Frozen in astonishment that Ward would actually throw a knife at him, Skye stares down at the weapon in her hand, gripping it so tightly that the sharp blade slices a thin line across her palm, blood welling up to stain the silver metal crimson.</p>
<p>“<i>WHAT THE BLOODY HELL!?</i>” Fitz bellows. “Are you trying to kill her!?”</p>
<p>Jemma bolts towards her, her hands trembling as she hurriedly checks Skye over. There are tears in her eyes as she gently examines the bruises forming around her neck from the specialist’s chokehold; she was truly afraid for her. Skye cracks a small smile and squeezes her hand in an attempt at reassurance. </p>
<p>“No,” Ward replies calmly, slowly getting back to his feet. He doesn’t break his gaze away from Skye, a glint of newfound respect in his eyes. “Trying to see if she can keep herself alive.”</p>
<p>“You didn’t need to throw a knife at her back to prove that,” Jemma bursts out, fuming. “You could have seriously injured her!”</p>
<p>“I didn’t,” Ward grits out. “She injured <i>me</i>, actually.” He gestures to his dislocated shoulder.</p>
<p>“Yeah, well, you deserve that, you psycho,” Fitz flings at him with a glare more menacing than Skye thought he was capable of. “And I’m sure Coulson and May will agree with me on that assessment. They’re already on their way back.”</p>
<p>“Let me treat your shoulder, Ward, and then you can go and sulk about Skye beating you somewhere else,” Jemma huffs.</p>
<p>The two scientists lead them into the lab. Ward sits on a stool in silence as they scan his shoulder with the portable X-ray machine, his gaze angled downwards, as he now suddenly decides to ignore Skye’s existence. Jemma gives him a morphine shot, re-sets his shoulder, and fits him for a sling, and then finishes off by injecting a corticosteroid to reduce the swelling. As soon as the biochemist declares he’s free to go as long as he rests his shoulder for at least two weeks, Ward grabs a blister pack of codeine pills and storms out.</p>
<p>“Wow. No apology, then, for nearly stabbing me through the shoulder,” Skye huffs. The sad thing is, she’s not even surprised. Ward never apologizes for any of his terrible behavior when he’s in a foul mood.</p>
<p>“He’s just mad you beat him in front of us,” Fitz snorts.</p>
<p>Jemma rolls her eyes. “More like embarrassed, considering he’s a highly skilled and experienced specialist and you wiped the floor with him.”</p>
<p>“Only because he was distracted by his anger,” Skye feels it’s important to point out. “And on top of that, he was cocky and not expecting me to use a couple of May’s moves on him. He would have probably beaten me any other day if he wasn’t acting like such a dick.”</p>
<p>Jemma’s hand places light pressure on her back. “C’mon, Skye,” she says softly. “Your neck needs some bruise cream.”</p>
<p>“My arms as well,” she admits, deciding it would be better to come clean about that now. Rolling up her sleeves, she winces when Fitzsimmons’ expressions turn to rage at the sight of splotched purple from her wrists to her elbows. “I was trying to keep my powers contained again.”</p>
<p>“<i>That’s</i> why your arms were injured last time?” Jemma squawks. Oh yeah… she and Coulson neglected to mention that her powers have side effects, and that the microfractures and bruises on her arms a month or so ago were because of that, rather than Miles abusing her. “<i>SKYE!</i> You should have said something sooner!”</p>
<p>“Sooner than just now, when it just came up?” she quirks an eyebrow.</p>
<p>“Yesterday! The day before!” Jemma insists. She forces Skye to shed her sweater and shirt - Fitz obediently turns away to give her privacy - so she can begin poking at her bruises. “Because then Fitz and I could have started altering the arm braces we already have for you to try and minimize the side effects of your powers on your body.”</p>
<p>Fitz hastily adds, “Only if you want us to, of course.”</p>
<p>“And withhold the two of you from a combined biological and engineering challenge? I don’t have that big of a death wish,” she jokes.</p>
<p>It falls flat, though, because of how her arms are exposed. Because of how Fitzsimmons are staring directly down at her self-harm scars. Suddenly feeling very vulnerable, Skye lowers herself down onto a chair and kicks her legs back and forth, keeping her eyes averted to avoid looking at the two scientists. Thankfully, neither of them makes any mention of her scars, and Jemma jumps straight into examining her forearms.</p>
<p>While there are no hairline microfractures this time, there’s still a concerning amount of capillary ruptures, the cause of the bruising. Jemma injects her with a mild angiogenic drug that will encourage blood vessel healing, but forgoes putting her in the supportive braces, as Fitz will need them to make further prototypes. Her neck isn’t as badly bruised as Jemma initially feared. Nevertheless, the biochemist slaps a huge tube of bruise cream into Skye’s hand anyway, telling her to apply it to her neck and arms at least twice a day until they fade. The cut on her hand is wrapped with a bandage, but because of her healing, Skye knows it will be scarred over by tomorrow.</p>
<p>“Why didn’t you use your powers on him?” Fitz asks curiously, spinning around on his own chair a few feet from hers. “You could have easily just -” He thrusts her hand out, making an adorable ‘<i>wooooo</i>’ sound effect in an attempt to duplicate how he saw her quake the Centipede soldiers yesterday and copy the vibrational ringing that usually accompanies her quaking. “ - And he would have been on his arse like <i>that</i>.” He clicks his fingers.</p>
<p>“Ward wants to prove that I’m a threat,” she explains. “The reason he was being so aggressive was to try and antagonize me into quaking him. It was a test. Hopefully I didn’t bruise my arms for nothing and he realizes I’m trustworthy now. I’m not dangerous to anybody on our team.”</p>
<p>“You know, I overheard Coulson telling May this morning that when the BUS was crashing because Tobias Ford cut the power, you vibrated the whole plane to cushion our landing,” Jemma says in awe. “May said that you were probably the only reason we all survived.”</p>
<p>Fitz whistles appreciatively. “There’s got to be loads of ways you’ve used your powers to help during missions before that we don’t know about.”</p>
<p>Shrugging, she replies sheepishly, “I haven’t exactly been keeping score. And really, not as many times as you’re probably thinking. I was trying to hide everything.”</p>
<p>“You have to remember at least one,” he pleads.</p>
<p>“Um… okay.” She thinks for a moment, and when a certain memory comes to mind, she can’t help but grin. “Remember on our first mission together as a team, when Reyes hijacked the plane? And a guy was about to shoot you, and you screamed like a baby and covered your head?”</p>
<p>Fitz splutters. “I - I wouldn’t say like a <i>baby</i> -”</p>
<p>“I quaked the dude into the wall. It was pretty hilarious how you kept screaming though -”</p>
<p>“Okay, let’s change the subject,” Fitz interrupts, his voice high and cheeks flushed red from embarrassment.</p>
<p>Jemma just bursts into giggles.</p>
<hr/>
<p>“Well, you still have all four limbs, so I suppose that’s something.”</p>
<p>Skye jolts and peers over the top of her laptop screen, so focused on her coding that she didn’t pay any attention to the vibrations indicating approaching ‘visitors’ to the Cage. She’s back in the Vibranium alloy box only because she made an agreement with May and Coulson to stay in here when she’s not needed in the labs for testing until they return. Leaving the door open, which was Jemma’s suggestion, makes it feel less claustrophobic and less like a prison cell. In fact, the privacy and quietness the Cage provides makes it an ideal workspace.</p>
<p>It’s Coulson who made the comment, although both he and May are standing in the doorway, waiting for her to give them permission to enter her space. The pair both look slightly tired, but there’s no gloom or doom plastered over their faces, which Skye considers a good sign. She waves them in, slipping her folded legs off the cot to make room in case they want to sit.</p>
<p>“No knocking... no hello… where are your manners?” she teases. “All you have to say is a congrats on me still having four limbs? Which you apparently doubted I would?”</p>
<p>Coulson quirks an eyebrow at her while May rolls her eyes. They head straight for the space she’s made on her bed; Coulson jumps onto the thin mattress beside her, while May perches delicately on the opposite end of the bed.</p>
<p>“We heard there was some excitement while we were out,” her SO says.</p>
<p>“I don’t know if excitement is the right word for it,” Skye grimaces.</p>
<p>Relief washes over her when she feels Coulson’s warmth bleeding into her side. She missed him, and he was only gone the morning and part of the afternoon. May is a calming presence as well, and she finally feels like her heart, which has been hammering in her chest for the last few hours, is slowing to its normal heart rate as she relaxes. She tries her best not to slip into purring, though… that would be embarrassing.</p>
<p>“It was all under control until Ward threw the knife.”</p>
<p>“Knife?” May repeats, her voice flat.</p>
<p>Coulson has a much more alarmed reaction, sitting up ramrod straight. “What knife?” he demands, and then even more horrified as he processes what she just said, he exclaims, “Ward threw a <i>knife</i> at you!?”</p>
<p>Skye grimaces. “I thought Fitzsimmons would have already told you.”</p>
<p>“They told us about the sparring, not about a knife being thrown at you.”</p>
<p>“It’s fine, I didn’t get stabbed.”</p>
<p>“I think I’m having a heart attack,” her SO says after a tense beat of silence. “Note to self, call Ward for a meeting and ask why the <i>hell</i> he thinks it’s appropriate to throw a knife at my protege.”</p>
<p>“You caught it?” May asks, intrigued. When Skye nods in reply, the look on her face is of immense satisfaction and pride. “Bet that startled Ward.”</p>
<p>“Like a deer in the headlights,” she snorts. “If you want to punish him, Coulson, you should put him on bathroom cleaning duties for the next month.” Then, growing serious, she changes the subject to the one they really should be addressing - what she’s been dreading to hear about. “So… hit me with it. Am I being Indexed?” she questions solemnly. “What did Director Fury and Deputy Director Hill say?”</p>
<p>May and Coulson exchange one of those deep, meaningful looks that they always seem to do whenever things get intense and emotional. Skye tries not to tense, in case her anxiety gives way and she accidentally sends a tremor out into the surroundings. She hates to admit it, but her control is a little frayed since her sparring session with Ward, like she’s strung on a tightrope. But then, the two of them smile.</p>
<p>“Fury tried to poach you for the Avengers,” Coulson says.</p>
<p>Skye laughs. “<i>That’s</i> not going to happen.”</p>
<p>“He was annoyed at first when I told him you’re sticking with us and the team,” he admits, “But as soon as we explained the circumstances and your past, he started to understand. He agrees that it would be better for you to remain under my command. The discussion of Indexing was where it got complicated. Fury thinks that waiving the typical Indexing order would be ideal for your situation, but as Director, approving of that would be a serious abuse of power.”</p>
<p>“Maria worked the problem and found us a loophole,” May informs her. “SHIELD protocol states that in the case of a minor or adult with a guardianship order undergoing Index intake and evaluation, their parent or legal guardian must give SHIELD permission to Index them, and can actually decline permission.”</p>
<p>Coulson takes over the explanation, continuing, “SHIELD protocol also states that in the case of an agent, asset or consultant needing to undergo Index processing, when associated with a special operative unit, that person’s supervising or commanding officer is to be their Indexing officer and handler until the unit is disbanded.” He holds his hands out, like he’s weighing each protocol in each hand. “Maria pointed out that if the minor or adult with a guardianship order’s parent or legal guardian is actually that person’s supervising or commanding officer, it places them in a unique position where the agent can actually decline permission for themself to Index the person.”</p>
<p>That certainly is a loophole.</p>
<p>The specialist must see the hope on her face, because she smirks and nods. “And as long as they remain that person’s parent or legal guardian and supervising or commanding officer <i>at the same time</i>, the person doesn’t have to be Indexed at all. And there’s no way around it protocol wise.”</p>
<p>Realization dawns on her. Skye stares at them both in amazement.  “You’re saying that if Coulson becomes my legal guardian while being my SO and our unit’s commanding officer… you just don’t have to Index me? And SHIELD can’t interfere?” she asks in hopeful disbelief.</p>
<p>“SHIELD doesn’t even need to know anything about you,” Coulson replies, sporting a smug grin. “As you’re a consultant for my unit, it would be considered an internal matter.”</p>
<p>Rustling alerts her to the fact that May is now pulling paperwork out of a plastic sleeve she must have hidden beneath her jacket. “Fury had the correct papers drawn up and printed off for us, because he can legally issue guardianship orders. They’re usually issued in court due to incapacity, but there have been instances in SHIELD’s history where they’ve been used as a part of witness protection.” She raises the small pile of paper up and places it on the bedspread between them. “He and Maria have agreed to be our witnesses and references.”</p>
<p>Skye startles, surprised by that. Why would the Director and Deputy Director of SHIELD be so prepared to vouch for her? Remembering how her first-ever meeting with Fury went, and how he’d thrown the pun ‘shake you later’ her way, she asks absentmindedly, “Fury already knew I needed to go onto the Index, didn’t he? Or he suspected. Hill too.”</p>
<p>“Maria knew you were hiding something, but she never thought for a second it would be superpowers,” May huffs. “Fury was just as infuriatingly cryptic as always. He didn’t seem at all shocked to hear about your abilities, and barely reacted to hearing about your father and Spectre - not that Coulson told him much. He definitely knows more than he’s letting on.”</p>
<p>“And he’s still going to help us?” Skye frowns. “He really arranged all the paperwork for this, without even needing a day to think about it?”</p>
<p>“Not even an hour,” May says, her voice dry. “Maria and Fury trust us, Skye, and they trust our judgments. They know we wouldn’t be asking them for this favor if we didn’t believe in you. They’re extending their trust in us to you. The Director had the printed documents delivered to his office within forty minutes or so of us explaining things.”</p>
<p>“If we sign them now and send them to the Director by courier before the day is out, they’ll be filed by the morning,” Coulson says eagerly. But when May shoots him a stern look, that eagerness dissolves into something somber. He reaches across and grasps her hand, squeezing it lightly. “But Skye - this is an enormous decision, you have to understand. You can’t take this lightly. This does mean that I’ll be responsible for you and everything you do. If you don’t want to do this, we can go back to the drawing board and figure out another way to keep you off the Index.”</p>
<p>Overwhelmed by the option - or is it opportunity? - that they’re presenting her with, Skye stares down unblinkingly at the papers lying on the blankets next to her, slowly taking them into her hands and flicking through them. She doesn’t really take in any of the words, her mind reeling already without even reading the fine print; they’re definitely real legal documents, though. Coulson is right when he says it’s an enormous decision - it’s immeasurable, mountainous. It will change her life forever. It might even be something permanent, she’s not sure. But is that such a bad thing?</p>
<p>Coulson will be her legal guardian… her parent on paper. For the past few months, since they met, he’s become like a father to her, showing her love and care, loyalty and patience. He’s everything her real father, psycho Cal who transformed her into a walking natural disaster and wanted her to be experimented on and medically tortured, is and was not. She’s already called Coulson ‘Dad’, albeit in the heat of the moment and in the aftermath of thinking that he was going to die. Him becoming her legal guardian just feels… right. She could argue with herself, find reasons to claim that this is a bad idea… but does she want to? No. In fact, she wants this. It will make their father-daughter dynamic official.</p>
<p>Then there’s something else. Something that started out as a subconscious thought, but she now can’t get out of her head. Something else that she wants.</p>
<p>Looking up from the paperwork and meeting Coulson’s wary gaze, she gives a short, sharp nod. “I’ll sign it. But before I do, is there a way to add more than one guardian to the papers?”</p>
<p>Coulson looks taken back. “What are you saying?”</p>
<p>“Both you and May have sort of been sharing the duties of being my SO. If you’re going to be my guardian, then it’s only fair that she is too,” Skye says simply. Because as much as Coulson has been like a father-figure, May’s been acting remarkably maternal towards her. When neither of them responds, both looking astounded, she quickly turns to May and adds with a nervous quiver, “If - if that’s okay with you. I’m sorry, I should have asked first.”</p>
<p>May appears strangely misty-eyed for a moment. Standing suddenly, she states in a slightly wavering voice, “I’ll call Maria and ask her to update the paperwork and send it over to us,” before sweeping out of the Cage and out of sight like a shadow.</p>
<p>Skye watches her leave with her heart in her throat. She likes to think she knows how to read the specialist by now, but in reality, she doesn’t know whether that was a good or bad reaction from her. “... Is that a yes?” she asks Coulson anxiously.</p>
<p>“That’s totally a yes,” he reassures her.</p>
<p>She breathes out in relief, slumping against his side. Continuing to flick through the paperwork, albeit at a slower pace this time and starting to take in the fine print, she freezes when she spots something she didn’t notice before. And then examines every page, to find that it says the same thing.</p>
<p>They haven’t used the name Daisy, her birth name, anywhere on the document, and they don’t know her family name, so instead, under her full name, they’ve put - “‘Skye Coulson’,” she whispers, tracing her finger over it in amazement.</p>
<p>Coulson is claiming her. Oh god, how her real rather would <i>despise</i> that if he found out. And that’s precisely what’s so thrilling about it. She’s never had a family name before, never had somebody want her so much that they’ve also wanted her to bear it.</p>
<p>She thinks that maybe it should scare her. Crazy Cal and the scientists at Spectre always talked about her like she was an object they owned, property they could do with as they saw fit, and isn’t legal guardianship sort of similar to that idea? Responsibility to care for her… almost as if she’ll belong to Coulson. But is belonging really a bad thing? All Skye’s wanted her entire life is somewhere to belong. Yes, her mother might still be out there somewhere, alive and possibly a SHIELD agent, but there’s no telling whether or not they’ll actually find her. She knows that for now, she belongs with this team - with Coulson and May.</p>
<p>Her SO takes the shock in her voice to be something negative, though, hastily explaining with an agitated expression, “We just thought it would be easier clerically if we made out you’re my daughter. You don’t have an identity in the system currently, and Fury said that it would probably make the filing process faster. It’s just for the legal documents, though, you don’t actually have to go by Coulson. Of course, we can change it if you like -”</p>
<p>“Do you think May would mind if we asked Maria to change it to Skye May-Coulson?” Skye cuts him off to ask. If they’re both going to be her guardians, she wants to carry both of their family names, if they’ll let her. She wants to belong to both of them. Upon seeing the astonishment on Coulson’s face, she blushes, muttering, “Or Coulson-May, I’m not sure which double-barrel sounds better.”</p>
<p>Coulson’s voice is raw with emotion but simultaneously thick with tears as he pulls her into another hug and murmurs, “Sweetheart, I think she’d be <i>honored</i>.”</p>
<hr/>
<p>The next morning, paperwork arrives via courier from Maria Hill’s office, declaring the guardianship order to be instated with immediate effect. Her SHIELD consultant’s badge, which was sent off along with the paperwork, has been altered as well.</p>
<p>She’s no longer just Skye No-name, the hacktivist outcast who’s lived on the run for a quarter of her life with a secret so dark that people would kill to know it. Vulnerable. She’s not Daisy, either, her father and Spectre’s experiment. Scarred and terrified of the outside world.</p>
<p>Legally, she’s now Skye Qiaolian May-Coulson. Computer science and cybersecurity consultant for the highly decorated Agent Coulson’s special operative unit, the only powered individual working within SHIELD’s framework who’s not on the Index. Protected. Appreciated. Loved.</p>
<p><i>Congratulations on your new bundle of joy</i>, is the handwritten note inside a cheesy one dollar card that’s obnoxiously pink with a cartoon stork, that’s been sent along with the documents. Fury has scribbled out the word ‘newborn’ from the caption ‘Newborn Arrival!’ and replaced it with ‘trouble’. <i>Try not to let her blow up SHIELD - NF</i>.</p>
<p>At the bottom, there’s a note in a neater scrawl: <i>Took the liberty of creating birth records as well, certificate enclosed. Skye can construct the rest of it. Warn her away from Stark. He’ll snap her up in a heartbeat if he hears about her, for SI and for the Avengers - MH.</i></p>
<p>Skye receives her own note from Director Fury, although it’s not written in a terrible card. <i>God help you with those two as your guardians,</i> it reads, <i>I’ve appointed myself your godfather because fuck knows you need somebody sane looking out for you. There’s an open spot on the Avengers team for a trial run if you change your mind. Don’t blow up SHIELD. </i></p>
<p>Similarly, there’s a message from Deputy Director Hill written beneath it. <i>My number if you need anything. Mel and Phil can be A LOT. Good luck, kid, stay safe. Please don’t hack any more level 8 systems - at least, not without permission.</i></p>
<p>“Deputy Director Hill calls you <i>Mel?</i>” she asks May in amusement.</p>
<p>“Fury used to call her Mellie,” Coulson snickers behind his desk, dating all the files with a flourish. “Before she left a tarantula in his desk drawer.”</p>
<p>“A tarantula?” Skye repeats with a laugh.</p>
<p>May’s expression remains blank as she sets fire to the awful card with a Captain America lighter stolen from Coulson’s collectibles shelf. “Phil convinced me that a rattlesnake would be going too far.”</p>
<hr/>
<p>The next couple of days are weird. Skye doesn’t really know what she expects, and it’s probably just her anxiety and PTSD making her constantly worried something is going to go wrong, but she does feel like there’s a line she’s concerned she’ll cross without knowing the boundary is there in the first place.</p>
<p>May and Coulson’s behavior towards her barely changes; she still trains at 5am with May in the mornings, and spends time with Coulson in his office after dinner. She’s convinced they’re trying to make a conscious effort to make out that nothing has changed, when everything has. They’re not overwhelming her with parenting, though, which is she grateful for. Both of them are already paternal and maternal enough, and it will take some adjustment to the fact they’re now her legal guardians for Skye to accept more parental habits from them without feeling smothered. There’s no mention whatsoever of the fact that Skye called her SO ‘Dad’, which means that they’re either going to let it lie, or talk about it seriously some other time. They do talk about her being his ‘daughter’ though, which is thrilling.</p>
<p>“Whatever happens, Skye, we cannot let Barton or Romanoff - or <i>any</i> of the Avengers, actually - find out that you’re now legally my daughter,” Coulson tells her one evening, as he’s teaching her about a new kind of code she hasn’t dealt with before - ciphers, because one day she might need to use or translate secret messages.</p>
<p>“Why?” she asks curiously.</p>
<p>He huffs. “They still think I’m dead because Fury refuses to let them know about my survival. He even went as far as to reduce Barton and Romanoff’s clearance levels to 6 when it comes to my files, so they don’t find out. I worked with both of them for years, they <i>know</i> I don’t have a daughter. If they find out about you, they’ll look into you and all the paperwork, find out it was filed recently but backdated, and then figure I’m alive.”</p>
<p>“Is that such a bad thing?”</p>
<p>“I’ll <i>never</i> hear the end of it from them. Plus -” he grimaces, “Fury might make me babysit Stark again, and I embarrassed myself so much in front of Captain Rogers that I don’t think I’ll ever be able to look him in the eye.”</p>
<p>Skye can’t help but grin. “Wait, does this make the Avengers my honorary aunts and uncles?”</p>
<p>Coulson pauses and then says dryly, “If you ever end up meeting Stark, <i>please</i> call him Uncle Tony to his face. He might pass out and I genuinely need that laugh.”</p>
<p>Fitzsimmons are the same as usual, although maybe a little more protective of her. Skye spends even more time in the labs with them. Part of that is because it’s her own attempt at exposure therapy. She reckons she might be able to overcome her medical phobia if she watches the two scientists she trusts testing her bloods and DNA samples. It helps massively that Fitzsimmons never pressure her into doing anything. It gives her a sense of security and safety in the lab, because she knows that her consent matters to them, unlike at Spectre. They don’t just spend time with her when doing tests, and they make sure that their usual movie and games nights continue, which helps too, because it lets her know that she’s more to them than just somebody with powers to study.</p>
<p>To her absolute astonishment, Ward apologizes to her for being such an asshole. By no means is it an elaborate apology, but Ward is not the kind of man who embellishes things; his apology does sound sincere, though, which encourages her to accept it. If Skye makes him promise not to ever throw a knife at her in the future, it’s just to make him squirm under the glares of her pseudo-parents and -siblings. Fitzsimmons still haven’t forgiven him for coercing her into sparring and trying to force her to lose control of her powers, resulting in her forearms getting bruised up again. Given how the bruises are mostly healed by the next day, though, superficial as they were, Skye figures it’s best not to remain bitter about it. She and Ward shake hands, and then Ward is asking curiously if she can show him how she manages to quake weapons apart, and everything is okay between them.</p>
<p>Everything seems fine with the team for now, although Skye knows it will be touch and go for a while, especially when it comes to missions. It’s likely that they’ll be expecting her to use her powers freely during their operations now that they know; she’ll have to keep reminding them that while she is under SHIELD protection, she’ll still being hunted, meaning that she can’t be flaunting her powers in public lest her father and Spectre hear about her.</p>
<p>Her father. That’s something that’s been bothering her since before Coulson was kidnapped and Mike’s tragic death. There’s a maelstrom of theories tearing up her mind, and then when she factors Raina into it all, it only gets more jumbled and turbulent. She finally decides that she needs to speak to her SO about it, hoping that Coulson might be able to provide a logical perspective.</p>
<p>“What do you know about repressed memories?” she asks immediately upon entering his office one evening without knocking. She doesn’t need to knock when he’s expecting her.</p>
<p>Coulson glances up from his paperwork, a frown marring his brow. There’s a gleam of something else in his eyes besides confusion and worry, though - suspicion. Wariness. “Why do you want to know about repressed memories?”</p>
<p>She hesitates, wondering with concern if she really wants to trouble him with this. But then Skye thinks of how her nightmares have increased in frequency since the desert rescue, her father’s twisted face haunting her in her sleep and making her startle awake in the middle of the night to have panic attacks. She slides into the chair in front of Coulson’s desk, and spills.</p>
<p>Telling him about how Mike said something to her that triggered a flashback of her father speaking to her, but how she couldn’t recall that memory before that singular moment. Confessing that she felt a sense of familiarity upon seeing Raina’s face, but didn’t remember her. Admitting that in the midst of the chaos that was saving him from Raina and the Centipede soldiers, she thinks that Raina <i> recognized her</i>, and might have been about to call her Daisy before she quaked her unconscious.</p>
<p>“Jemma thinks I have C-PTSD,” she finishes quietly, tracing indistinguishable shapes and patterns onto his desk. “And I was doing some research online, and apparently in rare circumstances, extremely traumatic memories can be stored in the unconscious mind and blocked from being recalled. As part of the brain’s defense mechanism, or something, to protect you from the trauma. But the memories can sometimes be recovered using triggers or psychotherapy.” </p>
<p>Coulson regards her carefully, dipping his chin ever so slightly. “It’s a complicated topic that’s debated about in the scientific community,” he says slowly, “But there is evidence to suggest the existence of dissociative amnesia, which they think does involve repressed memories.”</p>
<p>Skye swallows heavily and then asks in a small voice, “Do you think there’s a chance that I’ve forced myself to forget certain things about my father and Spectre? Things that, while painful, could help us figure out who was behind all of it - help us track them down and bring them to justice?” She blinks down at her hands, feeling numb. “Like… I told you before that my father never told me his last name. What if he <i>did</i>, but I just repressed it? And all the scientists at Spectre - they were around me for nearly a year, but I don’t remember a single one of their names? And I don’t remember <i>where</i> the facility they kept me at was. Even some of the experiments they did on me are fuzzy, like they’re missing parts. I don’t remember what the object was that caused my powers to be activated. Do - do you think it’s possible I have repressed memories?”</p>
<p>Her SO stares at her. His eyes, dark with something grim and serious, dart towards the door. Picking up on his cue, Skye raises her hand and quakes it shut, and then sits in cold silence as Coulson delicately picks up a device from his collectibles cabinet. He switches it on and waits as it hums for a moment. After a few uneasy minutes pass, he turns it off and places it back, swiveling in his chair to face her with a grave expression.</p>
<p>“Had to check there aren’t any bugs in here,” he tells her with a sigh. “Yes, I think it’s possible you have repressed memories. But there’s an argument to be had over whether they’re repressed or <i>suppressed</i>.”</p>
<p>“What’s the difference?” she asked confusedly.</p>
<p>“With repressed memories, your own subconscious would have forced you to forget them. With suppressed memories, somebody would have forcibly caused them to become repressed. Using drugs, hypnosis, brain surgery, or brainwashing.”</p>
<p>Skye pales instantly, horror crushing her heart. A faint tremor shakes the floor, making Coulson glance down nervously. “You think there’s a chance I’ve been brainwashed?” She’s always thought that she escaped the Spectre labs before they had the chance to do any brainwashing stuff to her, to turn her into a weapon - but if she was brainwashed, she <i>would</i> think that, wouldn’t she? She would have absolutely no idea about it.</p>
<p>“No, Skye,” he quickly reassures her, placing his hand on top of hers and squeezing to ground her. Exhaling, she pulls the tremor back in. “I’ve dealt with people who have been brainwashed before, worked with them personally to help break their conditioning. There are specific symptoms and tells, and you haven’t presented any of them.”</p>
<p>“Are you <i>sure?</i>”</p>
<p>“<i>Yes,</i> Skye. May’s had experience with brainwashed people too. The two of us helped deprogram one of SHIELD’s top operatives. She would have said something to me if she suspected anything. As far as we can both tell, you haven’t been brainwashed. The type of selective, dissociative amnesia you’re describing isn’t caused by that. It’s more likely to have been caused by drugs.”</p>
<p>An ocean roars in her ears. Coulson’s vibrations are wired and tense. “There’s something you’re not telling me.”</p>
<p>“Yes,” he admits.</p>
<p>Skye runs her gaze up and down him, reading his body language before settling on his face, which is grey and drawn. He hasn’t been sleeping. He’s anxious - even more anxious than her. “Something about you,” she realizes.</p>
<p>The sigh he exhales is exhausted and drained as Coulson moves around to lean on the front of his desk next to her, rather than sit. “I have very little memory of what happened to me during my recovery after the Battle of New York. What I do remember is about Tahiti, and whenever somebody mentions it, I seem to respond with a conditioned response. SHIELD have been keeping things from me. About myself.” He shakes his head, closing his eyes as if the very idea pains him. “Fury won’t let me access my own death and recovery file, which is marked as level 10, Omega level.”</p>
<p>“Omega level?” she parrots, bewildered.</p>
<p>“It’s required to access especially sensitive cases. If you were to be Indexed, we’d insist to Fury that your file be Omega level,” he explains. Pausing, Coulson appears to take a moment to collect himself. His thumb and forefinger of his dominant hand begin rubbing together in an anxious tick, showing his distress. “The machine that Raina had me strapped into functioned as a way to force the brain to recall repressed and suppressed memories. And before you ask, no, we are not putting you it in. It’s essentially a torture device. But it did unearth some of my suppressed memories, and I know for sure now that SHIELD have been messing with my brain.” It’s a horrifying revelation. And if Skye is disturbed by it, she can’t even imagine how Coulson feels. “I don’t know how the hell they brought me back to life, but they’ve been lying to me about it,” he grits out, voice breaking. “Now here you are, telling me that you think you have repressed, possibly suppressed memories, and that Raina recognized you. Which implies that Raina and Centipede are possibly connected to your father and Spectre -”</p>
<p>“Which is connected back to SHIELD,” she interrupts, trembling. Oh god, it’s <i>all</i> connected. Everything. All her suffering and pain - linked to Coulson’s. And behind it all, a network in the shadows, composed of the criminal and corrupt.</p>
<p>Coulson nods in dismay. “Yes. SHIELD can’t be trusted. Which is why I need your help. To figure this all out, so we can find out what the hell’s been done to us, and why.” Moving back around his desk, he scrambles about in a drawer for a few seconds before withdrawing a file - his own medical file, which Jemma has been keeping updated. But he flicks to the first page and stabs at a name. “I have a lead. Dr J. Streiten. He’s a SHIELD doctor, and he worked with Hill to subject the members of my team to physical testing, to give approval for active field duty. But he was also part of the medical team that I saw doing surgery on my brain in the memories Raina’s machine recalled.” He collapses down in his chair, running his hand over his face tiredly. “He knows the truth about what happened to me. He has to.”</p>
<p>Pulling the tablet on the countertop towards her, Skye runs a quick database scan until he finds the doctor’s SHIELD profile. It’s basic information - his name, age, birthday, his clearance level, and that’s it really, the rest of it redacted for safety purposes. There is a picture of him, though, and she studies it cautiously. “I don’t recognize him,” she mutters. “But then again, I wouldn’t, if my memories about the SHIELD scientists involved with Spectre were suppressed.”</p>
<p>“I want to talk to him, away from SHIELD,” Coulson informs her tightly. “I need his home address to do that, but his file requires a level 9 security clearance.”</p>
<p>She glances up at him from the file, raising an eyebrow as she realizes what he’s saying without saying. “You need me to hack into SHIELD systems for you, don’t you?” And here she was thinking that her days of illegally infiltrating SHIELD’s higher-level servers were over.</p>
<p>“You won’t be able to hack my Omega level file. If SHIELD even get a hint of you sniffing around it, they’ll have you locked up in the Fridge before the next sunrise. But a level 9 file…”</p>
<p>Nodding, she snaps a photo on her phone of the first page of the doctor’s profile, so she can use it while she runs the search. “I’ll find his address for you,” she says confidently. “You’ll have to stop Commander Hill from kicking my ass, though, if she ever finds out about this, because she specifically asked me not to hack anymore files.” Then, she casts a scrutinizing look over at her SO, slightly narrowing her eyes. “We’re sticking together on this, right? You’ll help me work out the stuff with my father and Spectre and the SHIELD involvement, and I’ll help you find out what SHIELD did to revive you, and why. I’m guessing we’re not telling the rest of the team.”</p>
<p>“Until we have answers, we’re not telling <i>anyone</i>,” Coulson orders.</p>
<p>Skye grimaces. “But… <i>May.</i>” It’s all she can think to say, and she thinks the single word might convey enough.</p>
<p>Her SO visibly slumps in his seat, and his eyes soften, like they always do when they’re discussing the specialist. “I know. I want to trust her too, but it’s too dangerous to get her involved at the moment. I know she’s strong and she can protect herself, but I don’t want to put her at risk unless we absolutely have to. So no, we’re not telling May. Or Ward, or Fitzsimmons.”</p>
<p>She sighs. “Another secret.”</p>
<p>He grimaces, appearing somewhat apologetic. “I wouldn’t ask you to keep it secret unless I thought it was completely necessary. It’s not that I don’t trust the team… it’s that I know they’ll want to help if we tell them.”</p>
<p>“And that’s a bad thing?”</p>
<p>“It is when it could put them in danger,” he responds sadly. “I feel terrible enough dragging you into this; you’re just a kid. I just hope that whatever happens, we get the answers we need. But we can’t drag the team into this too, knowing the risk it will pose to them. If things go south, and they’re involved with us, they could be fired from SHIELD, or worse, locked up in the Fridge. Do you understand?”</p>
<p>“I do. I trust you, A.C.,” she manages a small smile.</p>
<p>Leaning back in his chair in relief, Coulson nods. “Good. Because I thought you should know, I might also have a lead on finding out why SHIELD had you in their custody before dropping you off at the orphanage.” He raises his hand warningly when she perks up, excited. “The only issue is that if you come along, it might place you in danger, so I can’t have you involved in the investigation yet. This lead might pan out, it might not. I will keep you as updated as I possibly can though with any information I find.”</p>
<p>Skye’s too exhilarated by the idea of her potentially finding out more about her past - and maybe even her mother - that she can’t even begin to feel disappointed by the fact she can’t join him. “You really think that we can solve all these mysteries surrounding us?”</p>
<p>“I hate mysteries,” Coulson replies simply. “They bug me.”</p>
<p>She nods. “They bug me too.”</p>
<p>“Then let’s crush them.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Chapter trigger warnings: Physical fight (sparring) and discussion of C- PTSD repressed memories.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Chapter 8</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>hey, so, its my bday, thought i would throw out a random update for fun. project is going slowly bc of lockdown but it's still fun and exciting</p>
<p>hope you all enjoyed the holidays xx</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Hey, A.C., I heard you were looking for me,” Skye says, leaning around her SO’s half-open office door and tapping the frame to announce her arrival.</p>
<p>Coulson hastily closes a file he’s reading - odd - and his expression is strangely stern as he responds, “I asked for you half an hour ago. You missed briefing.”</p>
<p>“Sorry, my training with May overran and I jumped straight into the shower afterward, so I missed the PA system call,” she apologizes, a little taken back by his strictness. “What’s going on?”</p>
<p>When she steps in to take her usual seat in the chair in front of his desk, she halts in surprise when Coulson raises a hand, ordering her silently to remain at the door. “Agent Weaver, the head of SHIELD’s Sci-tech Academy, has requested Fitzsimmons as consultants on an active investigation on campus into an attempted murder using a cryogenic device,” he informs her. “I’m putting you and Ward on it with them. I feel like the four of you could use some team bonding after everything that’s happened recently.”</p>
<p>“What about you and May?” she asks confusedly. Surely the two of them are going to be involved in this investigation as well - they work as a team of six.</p>
<p>Coulson shakes his head. “We’re not going with you. We have other matters to attend to.”</p>
<p>“‘Other matters’, huh?” Skye immediately quirks her eyebrows, a smile splitting her face. “Did you finally get your head out of the sand and ask her out on a date?”</p>
<p>“What?” He startles and for a glorious moment, <i>blushes</i> before clearing his throat and saying, “No, Skye, we’re professionals, it’s not a <i>date</i>. It’s a mission.”</p>
<p>“Related to…?” she prompts. Coulson just looks back down at his desk, sorting the paperwork he has laid out on it into piles. Frustrated by his reluctance to answer, Skye takes another step in, ignoring his raised eyebrow. “Are you following a lead?”</p>
<p>“I’m not quite sure what it is,” he mutters under his breath.</p>
<p>“Does it have anything to do with that home address of Dr Streiten I dug up for you?” she presses.</p>
<p>It took her a couple of days and a few all-nighters to wriggle her way past SHIELD’s firewalls to get that intel. She isn’t sure whether or not Coulson has acted on it yet. They’ve made one fuel stop in San Diego that lasted a couple of hours, more than enough time for him to get to the LA address in Lola, but she was in the lab with Fitzsimmons all day so she isn’t sure he actually took the opportunity. She hopes that if Coulson did go and interrogate the doctor, he would have shared what he found about his suppressed memories with her, given that she might have some herself.</p>
<p>“It doesn’t,” Coulson replies simply. “It’s something else.”</p>
<p>“Is it a lead on why I was left at the orphanage by a SHIELD agent?”</p>
<p>He shoots her a pointed, stern look, telling her silently to stop pressing.</p>
<p>Skye crosses her arms over her chest. “Well, can’t I come with you two instead? Another parents and daughter outing. I’ve never been to the Academy before and I doubt I’ll be any use -</p>
<p>“Fitzsimmons and Ward are in the lounge getting breakfast and running over the notes Agent Weaver has sent over,” her SO cuts her off, before she can finish. This time, she can’t hold back from emitting a faint irritated sound. “I’d recommend you join them.”</p>
<p>And then just like that, a split second later, he’s back to focusing on his documents rather than looking at her. Coulson’s recommendation feels more like a dismissal, and the impassive tone of his voice causes her heart to clench painfully. Something twinges in her chest - dread? Fear? Whatever emotion it is, she knows she’s feeling it because she’s getting the impression that Coulson, and by extension May, wants her out of the way. It’s barely been a week since they signed the guardianship forms - a week since her pseudo-parents legally, sort of, became her actual parents. Has she ruined it already somehow? </p>
<p>“Why are you trying to get rid of me?” she asks quietly. “Have I done something wrong? Are you upset about the guardianship? If you don’t want to be my guardian anymore, I understand, I’m not gonna hold it against you if -”</p>
<p>“Stop,” Coulson demands, gaze flashing up to her in alarm. His expression softens at whatever he sees on her face. “I’m not trying to get rid of you, Skye. May and I discussed the option of bringing you with us but decided that you would be better off helping Fitzsimmons and Ward with your computer skills and other abilities, if they become necessary. Neither May nor I regret becoming your guardians at all. We just know that it’s more important that your efforts and energy be directed towards the investigation at the Academy right now. All right?”</p>
<p>He jerks his head down slightly in a questioning nod, now appearing more worried for her than anything else. Skye swallows but nods herself in response, knowing she should feel relieved but still experiencing the same level of unease.</p>
<p>She rubs the back of her neck. “Will we still be able to call you if we need help?”</p>
<p>“Of course you will,” Coulson assures her. “We’re still a <i>team</i>, Skye, we’re just separating temporarily for two different missions.” He jerks his head towards the door. “Go and find Fitzsimmons and Ward, get them to fill you in. And eat something, don’t just drink coffee. You’re pale, and the caffeine won’t help with your stress.”</p>
<p>“Geez, Dad, fine. I’m going. I’ll grab some toast and OJ,” she attempts to joke, before ducking out of the office. Coulson is in a weird mood anyway, and she doesn’t want to risk making it worse.</p>
<p>Fitzsimmons and Ward are sitting in the kitchen when she arrives; the two scientists are making tea for themselves while the specialist nurses some coffee. He pushes the french press and an empty mug towards her invitingly, but she shakes her head and grabs juice out of the fridge. Coulson has eyes on the back of his head - and probably CCTV cameras around the plane - so he’ll know if she inhales caffeine instead of juice, and she doesn’t want to risk getting lectured. </p>
<p>The three of them are already discussing the investigation, so Skye decides that actively listening in is a better way of catching up than asking them directly to give her the facts. She busies herself with making toast and digging May’s organic maple almond butter out of its hiding place in the cabinet. May has a lot of secret food stashed around the kitchen that she’s managed to find with some scrounging about. Given that she’s her legal daughter now, she considers it part of her job to be that annoying child who filches her parents’ food. She preps her toast while paying attention to what Fitzsimmons and Ward are talking about.</p>
<p>From what she manages to understand, Skye learns that an Academy cadet nearly died after an indoor pool on campus was instantly frozen solid with a cryogenic device that uses a crystalline nucleation process Jemma designed, and a delivery mechanism Fitz invented. The device appeared to have been planted days before, meaning it was likely those specific cadets were being targeted. That’s honestly <i>insane</i> to think about; attempted murders happening on a SHIELD Academy campus, which is run by some of the best and most experienced government agents alive? Whoever the perpetrator is… they’re bold as hell, and probably crazy.</p>
<p>“Cadets are pretty shaken up over it all, so Agent Weaver asked if you two could speak to the student body about potentiality to calm them down,” Ward informs the two scientists, stirring his coffee absentmindedly.</p>
<p>Jemma scoffs lightly. “Of course. The Talk. We've all heard the Talk.”</p>
<p>Skye raises a corner of her toast into the air, pointing out, “I haven't.”</p>
<p>“I guess you will,” Ward smirks.</p>
<p>“Well, I've heard a lot about the Academy,” Skye says, glancing between the three of them. They’ve all mentioned it at some point or another in conversation, and it seems like most of the agents at SHIELD attend it before becoming employed by the organization. “I'm excited to finally see it.” Nervous, as well, but she’s not going to admit that. The Academy will be like the Hub in that it will have SHIELD agents there who could have possibly been working with Spectre and her father, so she’s not looking forward to sneaking around and keeping a low profile.</p>
<p>Ward inclines his head, beginning to rinse out his empty mug. “Me too. Never been to Sci-tech before.” Skye tilts her head questioningly. “The different SHIELD academies don't interact that much. Academy of Communications does, but they're the biggest, and focused on data analysis.”</p>
<p>Both Fitzsimmons scoff, Jemma muttering, “It's by far the easiest to get into,” while Fitz just settles on a huffed, “Boring,” before adding with a gesture, “That's where you'd be, Skye.”</p>
<p>She snorts. “Oh, thanks.”</p>
<p>“Hmm, I don’t know,” Jemma muses. “I think she’d do well in Sci-tech with her computer science background.”</p>
<p>Ward instantly protests, snarking back, “No way, with her skills and training, she’d be in Operations. Ops is the most aggressive program. More people wash out than the other Academies, but Skye would be tough enough to stick through it.”</p>
<p>“Would they allow her into it with her powers?” Fitz crosses his arms over his chest. “I heard that Operations can be discriminatory towards enhanced individuals.”</p>
<p>“Only individuals who illegally enhance themselves while in the program to try and get an advantage,” Ward scowls. “And I’m sure it’s the same for Comms and Sci-tech as well.”</p>
<p>Jemma nods in agreement. “Yes, Skye’s powers are innate so it’s more likely they would tailor her program specifically to account to that, rather than force her to adapt to the standard one.”</p>
<p>“So which Academy is the hardest to get into?” she asks out of interest. Jemma and Fitz both smile sarcastically at Ward while the specialist rolls his eyes at them. Skye grins in amusement. “I'm picking up on the rivalry between Sci-tech and Operations. You three aren’t gonna be arguing over who gets custody of me, right?”</p>
<p>The trio exchange looks and then Fitz grumbles, “We’d have to fight Coulson. He would want you in Comms.”</p>
<p>“May would be on my side and want her in Ops,” Ward says smugly.</p>
<p>Speaking of whom. “Starting descent, landing in fifteen,” May’s voice echoes around the cabin from the PA system. “Everybody get buckled up.”</p>
<p>They clean the kitchen quickly, washing up all the cutlery and crockery so they can put it away to avoid having to deal with any broken plates. Skye ends up squeezed between the two scientists on the couch as they do up their seatbelts, Ward across the way from them in one of the individual seats.</p>
<p>“It’s great you’re coming with us, Skye,” Fitz tells her brightly. “Not just because you haven’t seen the Academy before, but because you’ll definitely be able to help us if the device is temperamental and Simmons and I need help shutting it off.”</p>
<p>Before she can ask how exactly she’ll be of help when she has no engineering skills whatsoever, Jemma chimes in, “Oh yes, your powers allow you to vibrate things at specific frequencies, and as the vibration of molecules determines the phases of matter, you should be able to use them to melt any ice that builds up if the device malfunctions, reducing the damage.”</p>
<p>She shifts uncomfortably. Right, of course. The two of them are fascinated with her powers and would use this investigation as a chance to study them some more. “I’ve never used my powers like that before, so I don’t think I should start now,” she replies. “Wouldn’t want to cause any accidents and make things worse.” Wouldn’t want any of the faculty or students to see her either, lest they get curious and try and look her up in SHIELD’s database, only to find she’s not Indexed.</p>
<p>“Nonsense, you have fantastic control,” Jemma gushes.</p>
<p>“But maybe Skye should avoid flaunting her powers on a campus that’s rife with scientists who would probably love the chance to dissect her and figure out the physiology behind her abilities?” Ward says, casting them a harsh look. “I’m taking point here. Skye, don’t use your powers at all unless it’s strictly necessary, all right?”</p>
<p>“Got it,” she agrees, silently relieved.</p>
<p>Once they’ve landed at the airport nearest to the Academy, a military one Skye has never heard of before, May hands Ward the keys to the SUV and wishes them good luck on their investigation. At least she isn’t behaving as strangely as Coulson; her mentor gives her a gentle squeeze on her shoulder as she heads down the ramp of the plane, leaning in to whisper that she should introduce herself as Skye May-Coulson to Weaver when they meet if she wants some fun. She has her new SHIELD consultant ID badge with that as her name on it in her pocket, and while it does feel like a huge responsibility, it’s also an honor to be connected to two of the most amazing agents SHIELD has ever seen.</p>
<p>She’s not certain what she expects it to look like, but the Academy of Science and Technology turns out to closely resemble a distinguished, affluent university campus, with high-tech, modern buildings each dedicated to specific disciplines such as Quantum Mechanics, Biochemistry, Robotics, and many more. Skye even sees a Cybersecurity complex that perks her curiosity. The cadets walking around are all in smart-casual wear, similar to what Fitzsimmons wear on a regular basis, and they look appropriately geeky; she can’t imagine that any of them have IQs below 160. Her own IQ of 148 feels measly in comparison. The campus isn’t all that busy, though; it’s early December, after all, and it seems as if a lot of students have already gone home for Christmas.</p>
<p>Agent Weaver greets Fitzsimmons like they’re old friends when she approaches them, and both of the two scientists preen under her attention, immediately responding to her pleasantries with compliments. It solidifies the image in Skye’s mind of the pair as teachers’ pets, but then realizes that it’s more of a mutual respect thing than cozying up, as Fitzsimmons are fully-fledged agents working on a special operative team now.</p>
<p>“Agent Ward. Pleasure to have you here, sir,” Weaver says politely, shaking his hand.</p>
<p>“Agent Weaver, pleasure is all mine. There's a list of suspects?” Ward, of course, is as direct as always. It wouldn’t kill him to make a little small talk, Skye muses, but she supposes that it quickens up the investigative process if they skip past it.</p>
<p>Weaver nods seriously, informing him, “Based on the level of intelligence it would take to put a device together like the one we found, we've narrowed it down to the top ten percent of our cadets. I'm worried there's a bad seed.”</p>
<p>Ward leans in towards her to murmurs, “Ops and Sci-tech have their differences, but both have to be careful about what we call ‘bad seeds’, people who want to use the tools we give them for -”</p>
<p>“‘Bad seed’ isn't a SHIELD term, Ward, just a term,” she interrupts him with a snicker.</p>
<p>“You must be the cybersecurity and pattern analysis consultant and I’ve heard about from Agent Hand,” Weaver comments, the smile plastered on her face more forced now, her vibrations buzzing with suspicion. Skye has to resist the urge to wince; Hand has made it very clear that she heavily dislikes her in the past, so whatever that agent has told Weaver, it can’t be good. “Welcome to Sci-tech.”</p>
<p>“Great to be here and see how SHIELD trains its recruits,” Skye responds, refusing to be put off by the idea of Hand giving Weaver a bad impression of her. She’s been told by Coulson that she can be quite charming when she wants to be. She holds her hand out diplomatically with a gracious smile, showing her badge with her other hand. “Hi. Skye May-Coulson. It’s so nice to meet one of the people who inspired Fitzsimmons to become such incredible field scientists.”</p>
<p>Weaver instantly freezes as soon as she hears her legal surname, her mild suspicion transforming into panic, disbelief and shock. Her gaze lands on her badge, seeing the officialness of it, and widen further. “May-Coulson. As in, Melinda May and Phil Coulson. I - I wasn’t aware they had a daughter.”</p>
<p>“Skye’s identity has been concealed her entire life for her safety. It’s only recently that Director Fury and Deputy Director Hill gave permission for her to use May-Coulson as her surname,” Ward explains, lying while also telling the truth, as all skilled manipulators do.</p>
<p>Weaver doesn’t look convinced. “I’m just surprised she’s a consultant, rather than a Comms or Ops cadet, given her young age.”</p>
<p>“Skye’s been working undercover with the Rising Tide as a hacktivist for the last couple of years,” Fitz pipes up, continuing the partial lie. “She couldn’t very well attend a SHIELD Academy, it would have blown her cover.”</p>
<p>Jemma nods enthusiastically. “It’s better that she’s not an official SHIELD agent anyway, as it means she’s not bound by the same data protection laws that we are, which makes her a much more useful asset. I bet she could <i>easily</i> out-hack any of the CS cadets you currently have. It would be a waste to have her restricted by SHIELD protocols, really.”</p>
<p>Appearing impressed now, Weaver notes, “Your parents must be very proud of you, Skye.”</p>
<p>That’s an incredibly loaded thing to think about. Her father - a psychotic madman who exposed her to something that permanently altered her DNA and turned her into an inhuman earthquake machine. Her mother - unknown, possibly a SHIELD agent, possibly the person who abandoned her at an orphanage when she was a baby. Would they be proud of her? Definitely not her dad… maybe her mom. But then she thinks about Coulson and May, her legal guardians, two individuals who have been more parental towards her than any foster mom or dad she’s ever had, and far more caring than her actual father.</p>
<p>“I hope so,” she answers shortly, but honestly.</p>
<p>“Getting back to the investigation,” Ward clears his throat loudly. “I know you've already questioned the victim, Agent Weaver, but I have a few questions I'd like to ask him myself.”</p>
<p>Weaver turns her attention back to the specialist, blinking rapidly. “Right, yes. I'll arrange for you to talk to Seth Dormer when he's out of class. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'd like to get Agents Fitz and Simmons settled into the lecture hall.”</p>
<p>“You should take Skye to see the Wall of Valor,” Fitz suggests to Ward. “We’ll be up in Quantum Mechanics when you’re done.”</p>
<p>Ward nods in agreement, and Skye watches as the two scientists follow Agent Weaver off down a path, where a bunch of older looking cadets are waiting to excitedly greet them. It appears as if Fitzsimmons are both celebrities here - the ‘popular kids’, as another way to put it. They don’t seem to need any help, so she follows the specialist towards a building called the Nucleus, which appears to be the central hub of the campus. She has to swipe her badge to enter through the doors, and then pins it on her shirt at Ward’s urging. Nobody is walking around here unidentified; it appears as if the Academies are just as secure as HQs like the Hub. </p>
<p>To be frank, she doesn’t quite know how to feel when Ward shows her the Wall of Valor. She’s read about it in the SHIELD manuals, of course; it’s a memorial to all of the SHIELD agents lost in the line of duty, and every facility has one. It allows SHIELD’s entire history to be traced. Ward claims that it puts everything they do into perspective, but for Skye, it represents something different. So many people, who lost their lives, sacrificed in the name of SHIELD for the greater good… and there are so many names. All of the people on the Wall have shown so much dedication to the organization that she feels as if she can’t trust. It twists her stomach with nausea.</p>
<p>Ward must be able to tell from the expression on her face, because he hurries her out and they head straight for Quantum Mechanics, where she can join Fitzsimmons while Ward interrogates Seth Dormer, who meets the specialist in the reception area, having been told by Weaver to wait there.</p>
<p>The lecture hall is filling up with freshmen cadets when Skye enters. Fitzsimmons are definitely popular, because there’s a pretty large turn-out, and everybody seems to be chatting excitedly as they file into their seats. It’s weird to think that a majority of the kids here, who are probably only slightly older than her in age, have PhDs in fields she can’t pronounce. She gets trapped at the back of the hall, at the top of the stairs, behind a big group of cadets who are clumped together. Craning her neck, she tries to peer over them to catch sight of her friends slash teammates slash pseudo-siblings. They’re down at the front in front of the podium, conversing with Weaver.</p>
<p>It’s Weaver that catches sight of her struggling to get down to them. “Miss May-Coulson, we saved you a seat here in the front row,” she calls loudly.</p>
<p>All of the cadets fall quiet, turning to stare at her with wide eyes. Not only has she been singled out… she’s also been identified as a May and a Coulson, and both agents are famous in SHIELD. Skye instantly wishes she had the power of invisibility instead of control over seismic and molecular vibrations. Gritting her teeth and keeping her head down, she shoulders her way through the crowd, trying to dampen her own anxious vibrations to make sure she doesn’t accidentally unleash a tremor through the room.</p>
<p>“That rumor is going to spread like wildfire,” Jemma whispers, hooking her arm into Skye’s and leading her to her seat. When she glances behind them and narrows her eyes at all of the staring cadets, they all hastily look away and return to their discussions. “Don’t worry, though. We’re not going to be here long enough for the gossip to get around. And technically, it’s a great cover. Nobody will suspect you of being Daisy when you’re Skye May-Coulson.”</p>
<p>It’s a very good point. “When you say spread like wildfire, you don’t just mean through the Academy, do you?”</p>
<p>“Gossip and rumors tend to be passed around very rapidly in SHIELD,” Jemma says apologetically.</p>
<p>She doesn’t get to dwell on it for much longer, though, as the lecture soon starts, with Weaver introducing Fitzsimmons. The two scientists hold the attention of the entire room effortlessly as they talk about reflecting on the past - throwing in a joke about falling asleep in a history professor’s class to keep their audience enraptured and entertained. Skye has to admit that she also finds their talk interesting, as they speak about how dangerous potential can be, as organizations such as HYDRA, AIM and Centipede are made up of brilliant scientists just like SHIELD is made up of them.</p>
<p>As they begin to explain about the consequences of untested tech and biology ending up in the wrong hands, as they’ve witnessed first hand in the field, Skye notices something wrong. There’s something within the hall that’s emitting very strange vibrations, and those vibrations are growing stronger, almost as if whatever is putting them out is powering up. She tries to wave at Fitzsimmons to get their attention, but they’re more focused on setting up their slideshow of pictures they’ve taken over the last few months.</p>
<p>She stands to announce they need to stop the lecture the exact second that one of the cadets starts screaming.</p>
<p>Thick ice rapidly spreads up the boy’s legs as he shouts for help, growing over him until his entire body is encased. The rest of the cadets yell and shriek in astonishment and horror, most of them legging it out of the lecture hall. Skye leaps up the steps towards him, Fitzsimmons right on her heels. Her heart jackrabbiting, she helps a couple of the cadets trapped in the aisle behind the frozen kid over the seats so they can escape, hoping that the two scientists are already trying to find a solution.</p>
<p>Jemma is scrambling through the medkit she’s grabbed from out under the first row seats. “He needs glucose to raise his blood’s natural freezing point. Find exposed skin, Fitz!”</p>
<p>“He’s frozen solid, I need something to break the ice!” he snaps at her. “Skye, something’s doing this to him, find it!” He starts jabbing at the ice around the boy’s neck with the pen Jemma passes him, trying to shatter it.</p>
<p>She throws herself into action, kneeling so she can search underneath the chairs closest to the kid. It doesn’t take her long to find a device very similar to the first one they found in the frozen pool’s filter system, which must be what’s causing it. “Found it!” she calls, jumping into the row so she can reach it. “Fitz, what do I do?”</p>
<p>“Smash it!” he shouts. “Jemma, are you ready?”</p>
<p>The biochemist rushes past her to stab a syringe full of glucose into the boy’s neck. Although Skye briefly debates using her powers to quake the device, she quickly decides that stamping her heel down on it will work just as well; as soon as the glass container of it breaks, knocking the coils inside loose, the device shuts off. Spiderweb fissures form across the ice coating the cadet’s body, but it doesn’t crack deep enough to fall off.</p>
<p>“Skye, I need you to shake it off him,” Fitz orders sharply.</p>
<p>Thrown, she blinks at him and asks, “What?” in shock, because is he seriously demanding she use her powers in a <i>lecture hall full of people?</i></p>
<p>“You heard me!” he growls, grabbing her by the wrist to yank her towards the boy. Usually she would flinch at such rough manhandling, but she knows that Fitz is working on adrenalin and doesn’t mean to be aggressive. “Simmons and I will cover you, just quake the ice off him - he’s already suffering from hypothermia and his blood will freeze if we don’t free him now!”</p>
<p>She glances around swiftly. There are only a few students left and almost all of them are sprinting for the doors; they do have a small audience in the form of Weaver and a couple of the faculty members, but they’re all hanging back, letting the field agents do their thing. Fitzsimmons position themselves behind her to shield her from view. The urgency of the situation requires her powers and Ward <i>did</i> say only if strictly necessary, so… she extends her hands until they hover about an inch away from the ice and then directs vibrations into the fissures, attempting to widen them. The icey casing fractures further, until it cracks completely and falls apart, shards of it tumbling to the floor.</p>
<p>The boy collapses, shivering violently all over, and she and Fitz grab him to lower him to the floor. Skye hears the two scientists reassuring the cadet that it’s all over and that he’s okay. Applause erupts from their small audience, with a couple of the people hurrying towards them with blankets and more medical equipment so they can make sure that the boy is physically all right, as he probably just escaped a scrape with death.</p>
<p>Dazed, Skye shuffles back so she’s out of their way, stumbling into a seat about ten feet away so she can recover. Her heart is still galloping like a racehorse in her chest, the adrenaline surge lighting all of her limbs on fire in a fight or flight response. Her head feels all watery instead, like there’s an ocean battering at her skull. She knows it’s got to be shock, rather than overuse of her powers, as it really didn’t take much to break the ice.</p>
<p>Ward bursts into the hall and, upon taking everything in less than a second, immediately bounds down the steps towards her, catching her arm. Skye jolts at the sudden contact, still on edge. “What happened?” he barks.</p>
<p>When she doesn’t immediately respond, his eyes flicker down to land on her hands. She’s curled them into fists so tight that her knuckles are white. She tries to breathe calmly just like May taught her to smooth down the quake of anxiety rising within her, that’s making her hands tremble.</p>
<p>The specialist curses under his breath. “Did you use your powers?” he questions in a whisper, so nobody can overhear.</p>
<p>“Fitz told me to,” she rasps. “Emergency situation. They shielded me from sight, it was fine.” Ward tries to grasp her chin, as if he’s going to check her pupils, so she raises a hand to gently push him back. She doesn’t need to be fussed over, she needs space. “Stop. I’m <i>fine</i>. Just need to catch my breath. Go help Fitzsimmons.”</p>
<p>Ward appears uncertain, but seems to understand she wants a few minutes alone, so heads down the stairs to speak to Agent Weaver so he can find out what happened. Once she hasn’t got him looking over her, Skye is able to concentrate on her meditative breathing to get her heart rate back down to normal levels and the vibrations purring beneath her skin to quiet. Noticing how the cadet they rescued from becoming an icicle is now sitting curled up alone, piled with blankets but still shivering, she moves down towards him, hoping to offer some reassurance and maybe get some intel.</p>
<p>The kid’s name is Donnie Gill, and it turns out that he is terrible at small talk. He seems introverted rather than unsociable, and very shaken by everything that just happened, so she doesn’t press him for too much information. Weaver soon sends Donnie back to his dorm so he can recover some more, excusing him from classes for the rest of the day. Ward is quick to bring up that the cadet he was interviewing earlier brought up Donnie, saying he was at the pool too the night of the first attack; that, combined with today’s events, suggests he is the primary target. Weaver reveals that the poor kid is an absolute genius who’s top of his class and on track to graduate early to be stationed at the Sandbox, SHIELD’s biggest research facility - but he’s awful at making friends.</p>
<p>Skye eyes Ward bemusedly when he sends Weaver away to continue with the investigation without them, interviewing more cadets and instructors. As soon as he informs them that they’ll be doing their own informal investigation, however, she instantly understands. If SHIELD cadets are taught how to keep secrets and lie, then the best way to get the truth out of these kids is to try and talk to them like fellow cadets, relate to them. Oh, and get them drunk. That always works too. Which is apparently something are they are going to do, as Ward asks Jemma where the cadets hang out to get away from the faculty and have some fun.</p>
<p>“Skye, I just want to say, I’m really sorry for snapping at you earlier, and for manhandling you,” Fitz apologizes. “I shouldn’t have demanded you use your powers out in the open like that when I know how you feel about it. I could have tried to find another way to break the ice -”</p>
<p>“But Donnie might have died in that time,” Skye cuts him off. “Fitz, it’s okay. I get it. Actually, I’m glad you told me to. I need to get better at using my powers on missions so I can help more. I can’t only use them in front of Coulson because he’s known since I joined, I have to grow familiar with the idea of you guys knowing too.” Fitz still looks worried, so she finishes her statement by saying firmly, “I promise, Fitz, we’re good. Let’s just get back onto the investigation, okay? We can talk boundaries after we figure out who the hell is making these devices and trying to turn cadets into human popsicles.”</p>
<p>“This is getting serious,” Jemma says concernedly. “Maybe we should call Coulson.”</p>
<p>“No,” Skye shakes her head. “We don’t need to bother him and May.” They’re on their own mission and they have no idea what they’re up to; they could be in the middle of something super important. She gestures between the two scientists and the specialist. “Besides, the three of you are some of the best agents the Academy has ever produced, and Agent Weaver wanted <i>you</i>, not anybody else. We’ve got this.”</p>
<p>They head out of Quantum Mechanics together, talking over their plan. While Fitz goes to talk to Donnie again as a friend, hoping that he might know more than he lets on, the rest of them cross the campus to the Boiler Room.</p>
<p>“SHIELD keeps careful watch of everything within their walls, so in the late '60s, to escape the cameras and the prying eyes of the faculty, a few cadets started sneaking down to the boiler room to play cards, you know, exchange ideas,” Jemma explains, leading them down a small offset path that leads down to a maintenance sector. She unhooks the chain labeled no entry without a care in the field so they can all pass through.</p>
<p>“Sounds like they were my kind of people,” Skye muses.</p>
<p>Jemma nods, opening the door into the building and then heading down a dark staircase, glancing back to make sure they’re following. “Some amazing breakthroughs have come out of here. Something about it just fuels creativity. So the tradition lives on.”</p>
<p>Raising an eyebrow in disbelief, she asks, “Of cramming into the boiler room?” The hissing and groaning of the huge boiler itself is drowned out by the fuzz of indistinct conversations in the near distance.</p>
<p>“Well, over the years, we made... a <i>few</i> improvements,” Jemma says smugly, opening the very last heavy-duty maintenance door to lead them onto a balcony.</p>
<p>Skye laughs in amazement as she peers over the railing at what appears to be a student-led hangout, complete with a roundtable bar, a pool table, huge TV screens and a dancefloor. There are tables and chairs lining the edges of the room along the red brick walls, with dance music playing at a respectable volume, and disco and strobe lights flashing. On the very far wall, there’s a mounted SHIELD Academy logo. It’s <i>incredible</i>. Skye’s never really been the kind of girl who likes nightclubs - too loud and noisy and crowded - but this place is somewhere she could see herself spending time at, if she was at the Academy.</p>
<p>Ward looks like he’s swallowed a lemon. </p>
<p>“Do you have one of these at Operations?” Jemma asks him sweetly, the triumphant smile on her face suggesting that she already knows the answer.</p>
<p>“No,” Ward grumbles, his voice sour.</p>
<p>“Did not think so.”</p>
<p>Skye grabs Jemma’s hand and tugs her towards the staircase that leads down onto the main floor. Yes, they’re on a mission here, but this is also her first opportunity to enjoy a proper ladies’ day out with her best friend off the BUS. “Drinks are on me!”</p>
<p>“No, they are not!” Ward protests, grabbing Jemma’s other arm so that the biochemist is trapped between the two of them. “You’re twenty, you’re not even old enough to drink!”</p>
<p>“My badge says I am!” Skye counters with a smirk, flashing it at him.</p>
<p>“You changed your birthday on your badge to make you twenty-one?” Ward splutters.</p>
<p>“I’m an orphan, I don’t know my birthday,” she replies, raising her chin and wiggling her eyebrows. “May and Coulson said I could choose whatever date I want. So I did - because they never said I couldn’t change the year either.”</p>
<p>“Skye,” he growls.</p>
<p>“Relax, Ward, I’m not gonna get drunk,” she rolls her eyes. “I won’t even let myself get tipsy, I promise. I can’t, in case I lose control of my powers. I’ll have a cider or two, and that’s it, all right? I already have Coulson as my dad, I don’t need you to become my overbearing older brother.”</p>
<p>Ward sighs and releases his hold on Jemma, who starts giggling. “Fine, but remember the goal here is fishing for info.”</p>
<p>“Which is why I am going to go and get chatty with the cadets,” she grins. “I’m pretty good at flirting in such a way I can extract intel from people.”</p>
<p>“What, so you and Simmons handle the guys and I handle the girls?” Ward says dryly.</p>
<p>Skye raises an eyebrow. “What makes you think I’ll only be flirting with the guys?”</p>
<p>Ward suddenly halts in his descent down the stairs behind her. His face is gloriously red, and his response to her comment is just an incredibly lame, stuttered, “Oh. I didn’t know that -” </p>
<p>“You should talk to the bartender first,” Jemma suggests, cutting him off while sending him some side-eye. “Bartenders know <i>all.</i>”</p>
<p>At this point, Ward looks resigned to the fact that he’s not going to be able to stop them. “Look, just be careful, alright? Simmons, maybe you can ask around about the tech that was used in the ice machine and see if anyone is developing something like it. And Skye, the rumor about your last name’s probably spread around a bit by now, so you might be able to use that to your advantage.”</p>
<p>It has spread around, and it comes in handy, actually, when talking to the bartender, who is extremely friendly and flirty. She introduces herself as Skye May-Coulson, and he’s heard about her being here, of course, and asks why she’s on campus. It doesn’t take long for her to convince him that she’s a level 7 CS operative currently working in a special unit with the famous duo Fitzsimmons, although she’s normally stationed at the Sandbox. Remembering what Weaver said about Donnie graduating early and being assigned there, and Ward questioning about competition, she asks him if he knows if anyone has hopes of being assigned there. He points out Callie Hannigan to her.</p>
<p>She reports everything she learns to Ward, who seems mightily impressed with her detective work. “There’s a list of Sandbox candidates, and they’re ranked using class marks. Word’s gotten around that Callie lost the top spot to Donnie about two weeks ago. She was at the pool the night of the first attack, but didn’t want to go in. Suspicious, right?”</p>
<p>“Absolutely,” Ward agrees. “Great work, Skye. Go and find Simmons, find somewhere to lay low. I’ll make contact with Hannigan. She’s been flirting with guys all evening from what I’ve seen, so I’ll be the best candidate to try and pry some info out of her.”</p>
<p>Twenty minutes later, after Ward has attempted but failed to hustle Hannigan at pool, the three of them are running out of the Boiler Room after they discover that Seth and Donnie staged the two attacks to lure Fitzsimmons to the Academy and take themselves off the radar as suspects.</p>
<p>“Fitz is with Donnie right now,” Jemma says, horrified. “He’s in danger.”</p>
<p>She frantically calls Fitz to warn him, but the engineer hangs up after mumbling something about helping Donnie fix his power cell problem. The biochemist becomes concerned that he might have gone back to confront the cadet, fretting aloud. After hearing Jemma’s story over beers about how she and Fitz were initially rivals, who became best friends and partners after being paired in chem lab together, Skye understands her worry - it’s clear for everybody to see that Jemma and Fitz are in love with each other, but completely oblivious to each other’s affections.</p>
<p>Donnie Gill’s dorm door is locked when they arrive, and Skye quakes it open before Ward can kick it down. “Shit, Fitz,” she murmurs, rushing in and kneeling beside the unconscious engineer. His pulse is rapid but steady beneath her fingers. His vibrations are calm and undisrupted, but he’s out cold. “What did they do to you?”</p>
<p>“Knocked him out with this,” Jemma says breathlessly, picking up something that looks like a prototype of some sort of gun from where it’s been discarded on the floor. “Ionised air cannon. He’ll have a mighty headache later, but he’ll be fine.” She crouches down beside Skye to shake Fitz’s shoulders gently. “Leo? Wake up!”</p>
<p>“I’ll contact Agent Weaver, tell them to put a search out for Dormer and Gill,” Ward announces, ducking out of the room.</p>
<p>“Get May and Coulson on the phone too,” Skye calls after him. “We’re gonna need their help.” She’s a little reluctant to admit that, but at this point? They need back-up.</p>
<p>Fitz stirs awake with a groan. “Bloody hell, my head,” he complains. Then, a second later, he shoots upright, alarm contorting his face. “Seth and Donnie, they’ve built a bigger version of the ice machine. A device that big - it’s nothing less than a <i>weapon</i>.”</p>
<p>“Ward’s speaking with Weaver now so they can start looking for them both,” Skye reassures him. “We’ll find them and recover the device before it can be used to hurt anybody.”</p>
<p>Flopping back down onto the floor, Fitz covers his face and emits a noise that’s similar to a whimper. “God, how could I have been so <i>stupid?</i> A battery carrying a terawatt of energy, that’s ridiculously powerful, I should have known he was designing it for a reason!”</p>
<p>“It’s not your fault, Fitz, you didn’t know,” Jemma tries to soothe him, rubbing his shoulder.</p>
<p>“Yeah, but I should have!”</p>
<p>“I can’t reach May or Coulson,” Ward reports, stepping back in. He looks momentarily relieved to see Fitz awake. “Weaver says that per her last communication with them, their ETA to land in the airfield is forty minutes. I’m going to meet with her now to coordinate a sweep across campus to find the cadets. Skye, do you think you could access CCTV and use facial recognition to try and find them?”</p>
<p>She nods, helping Jemma get the engineer back to his feet. “Yeah, give me a tablet and I’ll have an algorithm set up in ten to ping your phone with sightings. Should we be searching Donnie’s room for blueprints to the device?”</p>
<p>“No point, he would have taken them all with him to avoid leaving evidence behind,” Fitz mutters. “But I think I understand how it works, so I’ll write down some notes that will help you dismantle it if you find it, Ward.”</p>
<p>Skye, Fitz and Jemma end up waiting at the airfield for the BUS to arrive. The entire time, Fitz vibrates with nervous energy, reeking of guilt and shame. Skye doesn’t really know what to say to him, as she’s sure nothing she could do would comfort him. Jemma keeps trying to tell him that he’s not to blame, but it doesn’t seem to help. When the plane finally lands, they board as soon as the ramp is lowered down. Skye exhales in relief at the sight of May and Coulson waiting for them, and has to resist the urge to sprint up to them both and hug them.</p>
<p>“Fill us in,” Coulson orders, his voice firm and authoritative, which is strangely relieving to hear.</p>
<p>The team’s back together.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. Chapter 9</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>taking a hasty break in the middle of all my thesis and research project hell to update with this short (by my standards lol) but sweet chapter. hope you're all doing okay and thank you once again for your tremendous patience and support x</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>As Skye is tracing the purchases of the incredibly rare and expensive parts of the device while Fitzsimmons explain everything that’s happened so far, she begins to realize that both May and Coulson are behaving awkwardly. May is avoiding her, heading straight back to the cockpit and making contact with Ward for an update. Coulson follows her and Fitzsimmons into the lab, but flat out <i>ignores</i> her. He refuses to even <i>look</i> at her, let alone speak to her.</p><p>He doesn’t acknowledge anything she says as she explains that Ian Quinn is the one who is trying to buy the device from Seth and Donnie, going by the fact that thermopile radiation sensors within the machine were shipped to Seth's father, who's a lawyer for Quinn Worldwide. Skye is puzzled - and honestly, pretty hurt.</p><p>Did Ward manage to get in contact with May and Coulson before they landed, to tell them about how she used her powers to crack the ice casing around Donnie in the lecture hall? Did they find out about the whole campus spreading the rumor of her being their daughter? Are they disappointed and mad at her for it? Coulson promised before they parted ways this morning that he wasn’t trying to get rid of her… thinking back, he never assured her that she hadn’t done anything wrong. Is his attitude towards her now due to that, or the result of whatever mission he and May went on?</p><p>“Hey, can I talk to you for a second?” Skye asks him anxiously, after Fitzsimmons have gone upstairs to contact Weaver again to tell her about the Quinn link.</p><p>“I… I have to brief May,” is his short response, heading out of the lab.</p><p>“Two seconds,” she pleads. But Coulson doesn’t stop, and she has to rush out after him, on his tail as he climbs the spiral staircase to head into the living quarters, obviously on his way back to his office. “Sir, <i>please</i>.”</p><p>Coulson halts in place, glancing back at her incredulously. “You never call me sir.”</p><p>“Ever since you got back from who knows where, you won't even look at me,” she says, hating how a tremor works its way into her voice. “And I know things have been heavy, but... did I do something wrong?”</p><p>Her SO keeps his head angled down and away from her. He sighs deeply, rubbing a hand over his face. His vibrations are confusing as hell, because they’re conflicted, like he’s lost. Finally, he tells her sorrowfully, “No, Skye. I did.” He wheels around to face her, stricken with guilt. “Ian Quinn's not the only one who manipulates people. SHIELD agents do it all the time... they actually teach it at the Academy. It's our trade. It’s ingrained into us to the point where it becomes instinct.”</p><p>She swallows. It’s not difficult to figure out what he’s saying without saying. “You’ve been keeping something from me.”</p><p>“Yes. But recently, I realized I had no right to do that,” he says remorsefully.</p><p>“You lied to me,” Skye whispers. She can’t hold back the tears that brim in her eyes. All of the trust and faith she’s placed in her SO recently, signing those papers so he could become her legal guardian, telling him her suspicions about her repressed memories… and yet the entire time, he was deliberately keeping secrets. Keeping her in the dark, because it suited him. And not just him, apparently - May too.</p><p>“We never aimed to hurt you, Skye. That was never our intention, I’ve never wanted to do that, and I’m sorry. We just didn’t want to offer false hope. It was mine and May’s joint decision as your legal guardians to keep this secret from you until we could get the proper answers we needed.”</p><p>“And now you do?” she asks quietly. He nods hesitantly. She bites her lip harshly to the point where the taste of iron fills her mouth. “Where did you and May go on that mission you were talking about?”</p><p>“We flew down to Mexico City to talk to somebody,” Coulson admits, stepping closer to her and offering his hand out for her to take. But Skye flinches back, wraps her arms around herself protectively. She can’t have him touching her right now, not when her wavering emotions are already making it hard for her to keep her powers on a leash. “Somebody connected to the foster system protocol file, who knows where you came from.”</p><p>Her heart skips a beat. A light tremor escapes out of her feet into the floor. An answer, she thinks dazedly. Coulson might have the answer as to who she is, where she came from, why she ended up at St Agnes - why she is the way that she is. “Tell me,” she croaks.</p><p>Pressing his lips together, Coulson tells her in a hushed, sad voice, “When we started this, I warned you... that you might not like what you learn.”</p><p>She shakes her head. “And I told you... that it can't be worse than what I have imagined.”</p><p>“It is,” Coulson replies quietly, those two words utterly soul-crushing. “Which is why I wanted to wait to tell you until this is all over. And because the information I have is something the rest of the team needs to hear as well.” Anger flares, and she opens her mouth to argue, but Coulson lays a heavy hand on her shoulder, keeping it there despite her attempts to furiously shrug it off. “Listen to me. I tell you this, Skye, and you won’t be able to concentrate on anything else. You could lose control. I don’t know if we could handle that right now, what with the focus needing to be on finding those two cadets and recovering the ice device.” He lowers his chin to stare directly into her eyes, his expression grave. “So I know it’s asking for far too much, considering how I’ve already broken your confidence, but I need you to trust me, as your commanding officer, SO, guardian, and fa- <i>friend</i>, when I say that I will tell you everything I know once everything is safe again, and we’re in the right position where we can deal with the fallout. Can you do that?”</p><p>She eyes him warily. She’s not quite sure whether or not she can believe him. “Will you actually tell me, or is that another lie?”</p><p>Coulson winces, but concedes, “I deserve that. Yes, I will tell you. If I don’t, you can go to May. She knows as well.”</p><p>They continue staring at each other for a moment more, Coulson with regret and dismay and Skye with unhappiness, before the intercom crackles to life.</p><p>Fitz’s concerned voice announces, “Sir, we have a serious situation occurring down on the ground - well, actually in the skies directly above the Academy. Seth and Donnie must have activated the device, because a huge blizzard superstorm is developing. We need you here in control.”</p><p>Coulson sighs heavily again and then inclines his head in a request for her to follow. Reluctant, but worried about the storm the engineer is talking about, Skye tails her SO through the living quarters to the control room. She’ll take Coulson to the whipping post later; they’ll absolutely be having a proper discussion about his keeping secrets from her, because honestly, she thinks it makes him kind of a hypocrite. And she’s desperate to hear what information he has on where she came from, as he so eloquently put it.</p><p>The rest of the team are waiting for them, sans Ward who is down at the Academy with Weaver, but on call. May casts her a troubled glance but quickly refocuses on the big screen, where thermal satellite cameras show a giant hurricane-esque formation circling above the campus. Skye doesn’t know much about weather, but she knows that the numbers on the side of the screen are not good. </p><p>“Is there any way we can stop it?” Coulson asks grimly.</p><p>“Not from out here,” Fitz responds. “They're in real trouble.”</p><p>“Where is the device?” May chimes in.</p><p>Fitz taps the screen, where higher temperatures are being recorded in a hole in the middle of the blizzard. “Most likely right there, dead center of the storm. We’ve got to get Donnie and Seth out and the device shut down before the system grows bigger and collapses.”</p><p>Coulson grimaces. “Ward, how are things on the ground?”</p><p>“We've got almost everyone safe in the Boiler Room,” the specialist reports, and they can hear both startled screaming and threatening rumbling from the gale-force winds. “How bad is this gonna get?”</p><p>“Bad,” is her SO’s single-word response. Skye thinks that’s an understatement - descriptors like ‘terrible’, ‘awful’ and ‘a nightmare’ would be more accurate. “Can you reach the North campus parking lot? We think Donnie Gill and his device may be trapped in the center of the storm.”</p><p>“No, the winds of this ice hurricane are way too powerful,” Ward replies, sounding frustrated. “Anybody outside would be ripped off the ground and into shreds immediately.”</p><p>Peering around at them all, Coulson questions, “Is there any other way to get to Donnie? Think fast, people.”</p><p>Fitz lifts his gaze from where he’s been concentrating on the numbers. “I think I know one way,” he grits out.</p><p>“We’re all ears,” May shrugs, raising her eyebrows.</p><p>“You’re going to hate it,” Fitz groans. “We have to fly the BUS above the storm system and then directly down the eye.”</p><p>Everybody blinks at him in disbelief, Skye included, because - what?</p><p>“You’re kidding,” May says flatly.</p><p>“I really wish I was.”</p><p>“But even within the eye itself, there’ll be gale-force winds on the outskirts of it, what with how powerful the storm is,” Coulson says slowly. “And taking the G-forces into account - Fitz, the plane will be torn apart.”</p><p>Fitz nods, but then turns to her with an apologetic, sheepish look. “Not if Skye places a vibrational shield around us like she did before when the plane’s power was cut and we crash-landed.”</p><p>Skye hopes that her jaw hasn’t dropped open from shock; she freezes in astonishment for a second, trying to process what he’s proposing.</p><p>“Will that work?” Coulson asks dubiously. “Simmons?”</p><p>Jemma gapes but then stammers out, “Well, Fitz knows the physics better than me, but it sounds like it would work. If the shield remains in place, we should be able to quickly get in and out to destroy the device and pick up the boys.”</p><p>“Can you do it?” May questions with a frown.</p><p>It doesn’t sound impossible. Skye already knows that she can make a vibrational shield around the plane, so it’s not like that’s going to be the complicated part. It will be staying conscious and concentrating long enough to maintain that, that will be the problem. “Um. Theoretically, yeah, I guess so?”</p><p>“Skye’s definitely powerful enough to do it,” Fitz confirms. “We know that for a fact. I wouldn’t have suggested it otherwise.”</p><p>“I can try,” she offers.</p><p>Coulson sets his jaw. “It could kill you.”</p><p>She bites her lip to stop herself from snapping at him and letting her current irritation towards him get the better of her. “And thousands of kids down at the Academy right now might die if we don’t shut down that machine,” she says firmly.</p><p>“Protecting their lives by risking your own is not a safe solution.”</p><p>“Well, have you got any other ideas?” she sighs.</p><p>Coulson grits his teeth and looks away towards May. “You can’t be okay with this.”</p><p>“Of course I’m not,” May snaps. “But it’s our only viable option right now, and if Skye thinks she’s strong enough to do it, and Fitzsimmons think the science is sound, then we should trust in her to know her limits.”</p><p>“Thanks, May.” Having made her decision that she’ll attempt it, she nudges Jemma with her shoulder. “You’ll have to pump me full of glucose before I start. My stamina when it comes to concentrating my powers for a sustained period of time will be the main problem. If I pass out at the wrong moment and the shield fails while we’re down in the eye -”</p><p>Jemma cuts her off before she can finish that sentence, probably because her best friend hates her talking about the possibility of dying. “It will be too dangerous to set up an IV, so I’ll have to give you an injection now and then give you an autoinjector to use if you begin feeling faint.”</p><p>“And don’t you dare risk killing yourself,” May says sternly. “Like I said, <i>know your limits</i>. If it becomes too much for you, pull back.”</p><p>As May pilots the plane, gaining altitude until they’re safely flying above the storm while approaching the Academy, Fitzsimmons get her situated in a seat over the wings at the center of the BUS. Once she’s securely strapped into the chair, she receives her shot of glucose and then tucks the autoinjector into the seat pocket in front of her. It’s clear that the two scientists want to fuss over her some more and maybe ask some questions, but her somber expression must deter them, because they hastily beat it back to the lab. It leaves her and Coulson alone in the cabin, with him awkwardly, silently watching her from the doorway.</p><p>“I can’t concentrate on syncing to the plane’s vibrations with you staring at me,” she murmurs out of the corner of her mouth, eyes closed.</p><p>“Are you sure you can do this? Channeling the plane’s vibrations while we’re being buffeted by a storm might be too much for your body to handle.”</p><p>“I’m not going to turn into a kinetic bomb and explode if my body gives out, if that’s what you’re worried about.”</p><p>“Turn into a -” he repeats in disbelief. “<i>No</i>, of course I’m not worried about that, is that something that could happen?” Skye gives a little shrug of her shoulders. “I’m worried about you caring more about the lives of the cadets down on the ground than your own life and potentially sacrificing yourself if you think pushing yourself will help.”</p><p>She stiffens. “This isn’t some kind of suicide mission, sir. Is this sudden overprotectiveness a result of what you and May learned about me from whatever mission you went on?”</p><p>“It’s a result of me being your guardian and SO, and it being my job to be protective. And I know your brain is going to take that and turn it into something self-deprecating, and convince you that it means I’m protective only because of some legal requirement, but I care about you, Skye, and I will continue telling you that until you eventually trust me enough to believe it. Just...” Coulson runs a hand over his face, weary and concerned. “Please don’t hurt yourself doing this.”</p><p>She cracks an eye open, reassuring him quietly, “I won’t. But it will be easier ‘doing this’ if I’m not distracted.”</p><p>“Right,” he exhales.</p><p>“Go and wait with Fitzsimmons so you’re ready to jump off the ramp and grab Seth and Donnie when the time comes. I don’t need a babysitter. I’ll be able to sense the change in air pressure and G-forces when May starts our descent into the eye, and I’ll put up the shield then.”</p><p>He gives a short, sharp nod. “Good luck.”</p><p>Exhaling, she manages a small, shaky smile. “Thanks, A.C.”</p><p>“Skye.” She opens her other eye at the seriousness of Coulson’s voice. “I believe in you. You’ve got this.”</p><p>She nods determinedly. Allows her eyes to flutter shut.</p><p>And sinks into the darkness, as she allows the plane’s vibrations to wash over her like a tidal wave and drag her into their depths.</p>
<hr/><p>Seth Dormer is the only unfortunate casualty of the day, once the ice machine has been destroyed. Donnie Gill is on his way to the Sandbox, not as a researcher, but as a prisoner, so SHIELD can keep an eye on him. While the Academy has been shaken to its core by the events over the last week, there’s no doubt in the fact that the faculty and cadets will all bounce back, more cautious and wiser than before, and definitely more wary about a potential bad seed. They’ll recover.</p><p>Skye is <i>exhausted</i>. She thinks that sleeping for the next ten years sounds like a fantastic idea, although that might describe a coma. The amount of energy she expended maintaining the vibrational shield around the BUS almost caused her to pass out, but she managed to hold out and keep the plane protected until they got in and then out of the storm. By the time she stumbled down to the cargo hold, though, Seth was already gone, Donnie breaking down over his friend’s dead body. Poor Fitzsimmons appeared distraught as well.</p><p>All of their dejected vibrations struck her at once, nearly bringing her to her knees, but Coulson caught her in time to guide her against the wall, which she slid down. The overwhelming amount of praise she got from him, including an uncountable number of proud shoulder pats, was almost embarrassingly dad-like. </p><p>Now, she’s curled up on the couch across from the minibar with blankets wrapped around her shoulders and hot cocoa, courtesy of Jemma and Fitz. Ward was waiting for them with SHIELD officials at the airfield when they landed, so they could arrest Donnie and take Seth’s body away. With Coulson, Ward, and May coordinating with Weaver and the other SHIELD agents as the senior agents on their team, the two scientists have been left to take care of Skye. They’re attentive and extremely appreciative of how she essentially saved all of their lives by keeping the BUS in one piece. She doesn’t mind this kind of fussing from them, as they’re giving her space while making sure she’s comfortable.</p><p>“It really was <i>very</i> impressive, Skye,” Fitz praises her.</p><p>“I’m just glad I didn’t pass out this time,” she chuckles. But then her humor shatters when Coulson and May walk in, with solemn and dour expressions, Ward just behind them. “Oh,” she murmurs quietly to herself, as they take seats across from them all. It’s time, she realizes. Coulson is going to tell her and the others what went down in Mexico City.</p><p>“Agent Weaver just officially closed the investigation, which means we’re free to leave,” Coulson informs them. “But before we get back up in the air, we need to talk about something.”</p><p>Fitzsimmons and Ward all exchange agitated looks. “Why am I getting the feeling that this ‘something’ is dangerous?” Jemma asks nervously.</p><p>“Because it is,” Coulson answers simply. “And to be frank… it’s about Skye’s past and her continued safety. It’s about how we as a team are going to keep her safe while staying safe ourselves. May and I traveled down to Mexico City while you were at the Academy, to talk to an ex-SHIELD agent called Richard Lumley. He was the partner of Agent Linda Avery. Avery was the person who dropped Skye off at St Agnes twenty years ago.” He turns to face Skye, his expression grim. “Agent Avery was not your mother. I’m sorry that we deceived you by allowing you to believe that was a possibility. Avery is also dead. She was brutally killed a mere couple of days after she left you at the orphanage. We went to speak to Lumley to find out why, how, and by who. We suspected he might know as he went off the grid the day after she was killed.”</p><p>“What did he say?” Ward asks after a tense beat of silence, as Skye’s throat is too thick for her to respond. “What happened?”</p><p>Coulson sits back in his seat. “To understand that, I need to start at the beginning of Lumley’s story. Twenty years ago, a senior SHIELD agent called in an 0-8-4 out of a village in the Hunan province in China. He claimed that the entire village, of approximately a hundred or so people, had perished trying to protect it from something that was trying to steal it. A team of five agents, including Avery and Lumley, were running back-end, until they lost communication with the first team. After a few hours of no contact, they went in.”</p><p>“The first team, they were attacked by whatever was trying to take the 0-8-4?” Fitz questions, his voice tremulous.</p><p>“Lumley’s team presumed so. They found the senior agent dead, hiding under a bridge. He’d bled out from a gunshot wound to the neck. He was still holding onto the 0-8-4.” Coulson closes his eyes and bows his head, delivering the final blow that strikes Skye directly in her heart: “It was a baby girl, barely a few months old, covered in blood. She was miraculously still alive, asleep in the dead agent’s arms. They were told by the first team before the massacre that the villagers claimed she had powers, and was destined for great things, but needed to be protected from a monster.”</p><p>“<i>No</i>,” Skye whispers, feeling like the world has been yanked from beneath her feet. She can barely see through her tears, but it’s clear from both Coulson and May’s sincere expressions that he’s telling the truth.</p><p>She’s an 0-8-4. An official SHIELD 0-8-4, and a hundred people died to try and save her from a monster, who she can only presume was and is her father. People were aware, even just after she was born, that she’s different - not human and ‘destined for great things’... like her father told her when he exposed her to an object that activated her powers, <i>fulfilling her birthright</i> as he so claimed.</p><p>She feels like her heart has been ripped out of her chest. How is she meant to continue, knowing this now? That her entire life, she’s been haunted by death and destruction and slaughter - almost as if she’s an omen of suffering. Her lungs feel like they’ve been filled with lead, her breathing shallow and stuttering as she fights the urge to collapse into sobs. Inside of her, there’s a roaring earthquake writhing to be unleashed, but she tightens her mental chains around it; she will not be responsible for more pain, not if she can help it.</p><p>“Lumley’s team helicoptered you out of China and back to the States. They were planning on taking you to the Hub,” Coulson continues softly, but his voice sounds tinny to her ears. “But the Hub suddenly told them they didn’t want you there. The Sandbox said the same. No explanations as to why. Avery took care of you at SHIELD’s LA offices for a week as they tried to figure out what to do with you. But soon, the other people on their field team started being crossed off. Tortured, burned, their heads smashed in.”</p><p>“Execution killings,” Jemma whispers, horrified.</p><p>Coulson nods. “Lumley and Avery realized that the monster after you was hunting down SHIELD agents… using SHIELD as a method to find you,” he explains to her. “So they decided the best way to keep you safe was to erase you completely from existence. Avery set up the interstate foster system protocol to make sure you were moved around every few months. Then she removed information from the records and redacted the half-wiped document using level 8 clearance she faked using the dead lead agent’s credentials. She died protecting you and that secret, Skye.”</p><p>It’s a <i>devastating</i> truth. But they’re pieces of the puzzle that make up her life… and she finally feels like she might be starting to understand it better. She doesn’t feel quite as lost as before.</p><p>“What are we going to do?” Ward questions seriously. “Is it safe for Skye to stay on the plane? Does this change anything for us?”</p><p>“No, I don’t think so,” Coulson replies, sounding honest. “All this story tells us is that Skye was special even as a baby. With her new identity as Skye May-Coulson, and nobody aware that she is the Hunan 0-8-4 or that she has powers outside of our team… except maybe Director Fury.”</p><p>“You think <i>Fury</i> knows?”</p><p>“You never truly know with Fury. He seems to want her to stay here on the BUS… and I want her here as well. I think, given everything we know now, Skye is probably safest with us.”</p><p>A second of silence passes, and then the rest of the team are nodding in solid agreement.</p><p>“The plane means she’s constantly moving locations. If the monster after her ever returns, the five of us have more than enough training, skills, and resources to protect her,” Ward affirms.</p><p>“The monster is my father,” she says, her voice strained with how steady she’s attempting to keep it. “It has to be him.”</p><p>“We can only guess,” Coulson replies apologetically. “But from everything you’ve told us about him, it does appear that way, yes. We have no clue what happened to your mother. Lumley was under the impression she was one of the villagers who was killed protecting you… protecting you from your dad. It could have been her who handed you over to the senior agent on the ground, requesting SHIELD’s help.”</p><p>She mulls that over in her head. “So my entire life, SHIELD was trying to protect me from my father?”</p><p>The painstaking gravity on Coulson’s face morphs into genuine confusion and then amazement. “You’re… commending SHIELD?”</p><p>“They managed to keep me safe from my psychotic dad until I was fourteen,” she says with a little shrug. “Given that he apparently murdered over a hundred people trying to protect me from him, including a dozen trained SHIELD agents, I think I was lucky to remain hidden from him that long.” She laughs bitterly, wiping stinging tears away from her eyes. “I guess that despite all the shit SHIELD has done and all their meddling with my life, they were my true first family. I owe Avery, Lumley, and their team a lot.”</p><p>“Hey, Skye.” She glances over at Ward, who is regarding her with a surprisingly gentle smile, very out of character for him. “I think Avery might be on the Wall of Valor. Do you want to go see her tribute before we leave the Academy?”</p><p>“Yeah, we’ll all go with you,” Jemma says, reaching over to squeeze her shoulder supportively.</p><p>She nods, emotionally drained. “I think I’d like that.”</p>
<hr/><p>They leave flowers at the bottom of the Wall of Valor underneath Avery’s name.</p><p>White daisies. Symbolizing the innocence and protection of a baby.</p><p>It’s May’s idea. She vanishes from the group and returns ten minutes later with the bouquet, not giving any explanation where she bought or found it.</p><p>Skye stands at the monument for some time in silence, her fingertips brushing over the engraving of Avery’s name. Praying. Because even though she doesn’t believe in a God or higher power, Skye likes to think that Avery’s consciousness is somewhere out there, and she can express her thanks for saving her life as a baby.</p><p>The team hovers behind her, equally quiet. As she’s about to step away, her eyes red-rimmed from trying not to cry, both May and Coulson approach from behind, flanking her sides.</p><p>Her SO presses his own fingers to Avery’s name. “We’ve got her now,” he murmurs. “She’s safe. You protected her as well as you could. She’s our charge now - Melinda and I will make sure your sacrifice was not in vain.”</p><p>Skye turns and buries her face into Coulson’s shoulder to hide that she’s started to cry from the others, clenching one hand into his jacket and reaching out desperately with her other until May slips it into her grasp.</p><p>She’s wanted. She belongs. And she’s found her true family.</p>
<hr/><p>After Coulson’s threatening phone call with Quinn reveals that the man is in league with the Clairvoyant and Centipede, but fails to give them a traceable location on him, Skye throws herself into trying to work out a way to track the billionaire down. After all, if Quinn is linked to the Clairvoyant, who is linked to Raina, who is possibly linked to her father and Spectre, then there might be a wider web of corruption and crime here that they just haven’t pinned down yet.</p><p>Work is a welcome distraction from trying to get her head around the fact she’s an official SHIELD 0-8-4. It’s obvious her dynamic within the team has shifted once again with that revelation; Fitzsimmons and Ward are rattled by it, she can tell. As everybody was just getting used to the idea of her having powers and altered DNA, this whole 0-8-4 thing has thrown a wrench in her relationships with everybody once again. It’s awkward to be around them all. The only reprieve she gets from the staring and sympathetic looks is when she hangs with Coulson in his office or trains with May.</p><p>The two of them have been fielding calls and texts from agents from all different departments within SHIELD, as the rumor about them having a secret daughter has apparently spread from the Academy to the HQs and various facilities. Somebody is stirring up the conspiracy theories… Skye suspects it might be Maria Hill, as there’s a chance she’s still salty about her hacking secure files so easily. Coulson is considered dead to everybody below Level 7, so has to deal with significantly less hounding than May does, who smashes her phone into pieces after her voicemail inbox becomes so full its fritzes the software.</p><p>Fitz gingerly scavenges the SIM card from the mess and mutters that he’ll deal with it. Skye is extremely concerned that the annoyance of it all is going to drive the two of them further away from her, but Coulson seems more amused than anything else, and May appears to enjoy dropping the bomb of ‘yes, I have a daughter with Coulson’ on the senior agents who call, just so she can revel in their spluttering, shocked reactions. </p><p>May’s upped her training to the next level, and wants her to start incorporating her powers into her hand-to-hand combat. Skye doesn’t honestly know how to feel about it. She really doesn’t like the idea of flaunting her powers so openly when fighting, when she still feels like her father and Spectre are out there hunting for her. One tiny slip-up in front of the wrong person or in shot of a CCTV camera could ruin everything. On the other hand, getting some practice in using her abilities, flexing her power, is useful in building up her stamina. She doesn’t want to have to get jabbed with a glucose autoinjector every time she lets rip a bigger than usual quake.</p><p>In the end, though, she can tell that May wants her to utilize her powers more because as her guardian, the specialist is concerned about how she’s going to handle herself out in the field now Coulson has approved her for proper fieldwork. He has enough confidence in her that he doesn’t believe she needs an escort from him, Ward or May when they’re out on missions anymore - in fact, he even trusts Fitzsimmons with her, knowing she can protect them. It’s a big step up, and one she’s determined to prove she can cope with. So she allows May to push her during training. It gives her a way to work off her excess anxious energy between hacking sessions.</p><p>About three days after they’ve left the Academy, they’re flying over the Atlantic to make a stop-off at SHIELD’s London offices. It’s just to make a supplies stop - or at least, that’s what Coulson claims, but Skye suspects he’s planning on reaching out to the Metropolitan Police and Interpol to see if they have anything dirty on Quinn. She makes it her goal to find some intel or online trail they can use as a lead.</p><p>Telling Coulson she’s in the middle of coding an important algorithm, she skips dinner and their scheduled evening meeting in his office so she can curl up in the back of the SUV and work. Ward delivers her a mug of tomato soup at some point, which she scarfs down, but then she focuses on her laptop; she’s not going to let herself relax until she’s found something useful against Quinn. She starts by trying to track down Quinn Worldwide’s subsidiaries, of which it turns out are dozens, and then constructing a virtual web of all the shell and affiliate companies linked with those subsidiaries. Quinn will be using one of them for his shady Centipede deals. So she just has to figure out which one of them it is… off the list of around one hundred and fifty she compiles.</p><p>Skye doesn’t realize she’s accidentally pulled an all-nighter until knocking on the SUV’s window jolts her out of her stupor; she blinks, startled, and then realizes that her eyes are itching and aching painfully from the blue light. She’s tired. There’s a pit of hunger gnawing at her stomach. Her stiff limbs crack and twinge as she stretches them out before closing her laptop and sliding it aside. She groans when she discovers she’s developed a crick in her neck from bending down to look at her screen for hours.</p><p>May opens the car’s back door, running her eyes over Skye scrutinizingly. “Good morning.”</p><p>“Morning,” she grunts.</p><p>The specialist’s expression is disapproving as she tells her, “You missed tai chi and training.”</p><p>“Sorry,” she says lamely. She tries to check her phone to find the time, but it’s run out of charge. “What time is it?”</p><p>May glances down at her own phone, slipping it from her pocket. “7:23am.”</p><p>Skye’s eyebrows shoot up. “Really?”</p><p>“Did you sleep at all last night?” May asks in an aghast voice, taking in the fact she’s wearing the same clothes as yesterday. “You look awful.”</p><p>“Thanks,” she mutters. Skye reckons she has to look terrible; her make-up is probably smeared, doing nothing to hide her pale face. “Uh - I think I drifted off once or twice, but I set my laptop to beep every fifteen minutes to make sure I stayed on task.”</p><p>May narrows her eyes. “You skipped dinner, which was held at six last night. You’ve been working continuously for at least thirteen hours without a break.” She grabs Skye’s arm and drags her out of the SUV, ignoring her whines of protest. “You are showering, eating breakfast, and then going straight to bed. And I’m confiscating all your tech until tomorrow.”</p><p>“What? No!” she argues.</p><p>“Yes.”</p><p>“I’ve gotta figure out which shell company Quinn is using to hide his transactions with Centipede behind!”</p><p>“You are going to burn yourself out at this rate, and then you won’t have the brainpower to figure out anything,” May says sternly, giving her small shoves towards the staircase, presumably so she can shepherd her towards the living quarters.</p><p>“You can’t <i>ground</i> me, May!” she complains, digging her heels into the floor and refusing to move.</p><p>“Wanna bet?” she deadpans.</p><p>“You might be my guardian, but I’m not a <i>child</i>.”</p><p>May gently kicks at her ankles until she’s forced to move, to avoid getting her feet kicked out from under her. “No, you’re a twenty-year-old kid who can’t seem to comprehend the warning signals her body is giving off to tell her she needs to rest. And as your superior, I can absolutely ground you. Just be lucky I’m not restraining you to your bed and refusing to untie you until you sleep for at least eight hours.”</p><p>“I could quake my way out,” Skye scoffs.</p><p>“Oh really?” May snorts. “I doubt you could accurately aim and quake that water bottle right now.” She points to a bottle on top of one of the cargo boxes about fifteen feet away, left over from when somebody worked out.</p><p>Skye rolls her eyes, stubbornly insisting to herself that she can easily prove May wrong. But when she raises her hand to aim, calling upon the necessary vibrations, she finds everything a little off-kilter from exhaustion and she stumbles a bit on her feet. She scrunches her eyes up, blinking rapidly in hope that it will help with the slight blurriness. Finally, she huffs in defeat, sheepishly grumbling, “Okay, fine.”</p><p>Coulson catches them as May is marching her towards her bunk, pinning Skye’s wrists behind her back with one loose hand in a mockery of handcuffs. “What’s our girl done?” he asks with a raised eyebrow.</p><p><i>Our girl</i>. That’s new. She likes it. God, it’s stupid how much she likes it.</p><p>“She hasn’t slept for twenty-six hours and hasn’t eaten since lunch yesterday,” May reports, the <i>traitor</i>.</p><p>“Not true!” she protests, wriggling in her grasp but not seriously trying to get free. “I had soup Ward brought me last night!”</p><p>But Coulson looks ashen with concern. “How have you not fainted already?”</p><p>Skye scowls down at her feet. She has been feeling a little light-headed, but it’s nothing to freak out over. “I don’t need to be babied,” she mutters.</p><p>“You’re sulking and pouting, and refusing to take care of yourself,” May points out. Turning to Coulson, she suggests, “You should make waffles. I’m shoving her in the shower and then we can force her to eat before confining her in her bunk. She needs to nap if we’re going to continue with our plans.”</p><p>Skye stops, glancing back at her warily. “‘Plans’?” she repeats, because that sounds ominous.</p><p>“We’re landing in London by noon, and then May and I were planning on taking you out for the afternoon,” her SO explains. “Ward is going to supervise the loading of supplies, and Fitzsimmons are meeting up with Simmons’ parents, as they’re in Watford for a conference. I thought it would be nice if the three of us got to spend some time together off the plane, not having to worry about Quinn or Centipede or SHIELD for a couple of hours.”</p><p>She blinks at him in mild disbelief. “You mean like a family day-out?”</p><p>It turns out that’s exactly what Coulson means. Half an hour standing under the hot spray of the shower, to allow the heat of the water to ease the ache out of muscles, is swiftly followed by a breakfast of waffles and fruit, with a special tea blend May brews to make her feel drowsy.  Skye is then escorted to her bunk, and she sleepily waves at Fitzsimmons and Ward from where they’re gathered on the couch drinking coffee and tea. She’s only able to get a couple of hours of sleep in, in the end, because the plane’s shifting vibrations as they start descending towards the airport wake her up, reverberating through her frame.</p><p>She’s not sure what Coulson and May have in mind for their day out in the city; checking the weather in London tells her that it’s unusually warm for early December but will be reasonably windy. Deciding that jeans and a long-sleeved top should be fine, Skye shrugs on the leather jacket she shoplifted during her solo stint to track down a kidnapped Coulson. She chooses boots that will be okay to run in if they drop into any trouble, and puts on minimal make-up to make sure she doesn’t stand out. </p><p>They’ve just landed and parked off the runway when she emerges, happy to find the rest of the team waiting for her. Fitzsimmons are both dressed slightly more formally than usual, with Jemma in a dress and Fitz wearing a blazer over his sweater. Perfect for the conference they’re meeting Jemma’s parents at. Part of her wishes that she could go with them, as Jemma has gushed before about how much her mum and dad will love Skye, but she has to admit, she is tempted by the idea of spending time with her legal guardians, especially as Coulson and May are wearing casual clothes, both matching Skye by wearing jeans.</p><p>“Good, you’re ready to go,” Coulson says, sounding pleased. “Ward, we’ll be leaving you in charge, then. Thanks for volunteering to monitor the supplies loading. We won’t be back until the evening, so feel to order take-out for lunch on the SHIELD credit card. There should be a couple of bottles of Jack Daniels arriving with the groceries, so help yourself to one.”</p><p>“Thank you, sir.” Ward gives a one-finger salute. “Enjoy your day.”</p><p>They’ve landed at RAF Northolt near Wembley, which apparently British authorities allow SHIELD aircraft to land at considering their London HQ is in Whitechapel, with no airfields nearby. Fitzsimmons will be using their team SUV to make the half an hour drive to Watford, which is why Skye gravitates towards Coulson’s red Corvette when he announces it’s time for them to be going.</p><p>“Ah, we’re not taking Lola,” her SO calls to her. May stands next to him, accepting the keys of a SHIELD Land Rover from an agent working at the airfield and signing a clipboard form.</p><p>Skye shoots him a confused look. “What? Why?” Coulson usually takes every opportunity to drive the Corvette; he adores it.</p><p>Her SO and trainer exchange glances. “She’s a little bit too conspicuous for London, given the kind of car she is and her American plates,” he explains. “The Land Rover will attract less attention.”</p><p>“You’ve never cared about being conspicuous before,” Skye says suspiciously.</p><p>Coulson shrugs, but May rolls her eyes and informs her bluntly, “Maria texted him to warn us that since the rumors about you being our daughter have been spreading around SHIELD, the Avengers’ hackles are up and Fury’s not happy about it. Romanoff and Barton know the Corvette and will be looking out for mentions or pictures of it online. Also, it’s a convertible and Phil refuses to put the top up, even though the wind is freezing here in the UK.” Turning away, May heads for a passenger side of the Land Rover, chucking the keys towards Coulson, who catches them in surprise. “Come on, load up so we can go. It’ll be dark by the time we get there if we carry on at this pace.”</p><p>It’s only once they turn onto the M4 towards the city that Skye gives in to her curiosity and impatience. Straining against her seatbelt, she leans forward to poke her head through the gap between the two front seats, asking, “So where <i>are</i> we going?”</p><p>Coulson snickers lightly in amusement, glancing over at her with a smile before focusing back on the motorway. He seems happy to be in the driver’s seat and giving May a break from constantly transporting them around. It took him a few minutes to get used to driving on the opposite side of the road, though. “Well, we all hate crowded and noisy places, so we figured it would be better to avoid the tourist traps and the busy commuter routes,” he informs her. “Considering the decent weather, I thought it would be nice to visit the Kew Royal Botanic Gardens and have a picnic out on the lawns.”</p><p>“A picnic? In <i>December?</i>”</p><p>“The weather is unusually warm here for the winter,” Coulson explains. “No snow, barely any frost, a lot of decent sunlight. And of course, the gardens will basically be empty.”</p><p>That… actually sounds amazing. “Do we have all the stuff for a picnic?”</p><p>“There’s a cool box ready to burst in the trunk with how much food we packed,” May says, casting a fond but exasperated look over at their commanding officer. “Phil went overboard and made sandwiches, macaroni salad, quiche lorraine, and cookies.”</p><p>Skye perks up. “What kind of cookies?”</p><p>“Of course it’s the cookies she focuses on,” Coulson laughs.</p><p>“They better not be oatmeal raisin.”</p><p>May glances back at her, smirking. “They’re chocolate chip.”</p><p>“Thank god.”</p><p>“What’s with the slander against oatmeal raisin?” Coulson complains. “They’re classic.”</p><p>“We have standards.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>EDIT: as people have asked YES YOU WILL GET TO READ ABOUT THE PICNIC NEXT CHAPTER</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. Chapter 10</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>surprise update!! happy easter to all who celebrate!</p>
<p> </p>
<p><b>trigger warnings for this chapter</b>: discussion of suicidal ideation, descriptions of canon typical violence, injuries and blood</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>With the London traffic, it takes around forty minutes to reach the Gardens. Coulson parks the SUV in a private staff parking spot, claiming that he has an ex-SHIELD buddy working here that he was able to contact. They use their SHIELD IDs to get through maintenance gates rather than braving the front entrance; it makes Skye giggle just because she feels like they’re breaking the rules.</p>
<p>The gardens are absolutely beautiful, stunningly pruned, and styled with thousands of different wonderful plant species. Even though it’s winter, there are surprisingly still some amazing flowers blooming, scenting the air. There are barely any people around, probably because it’s out of season to visit, but it means she can concentrate more on enjoying the scenery rather than worrying about civilians.</p>
<p>The three of them walk for a while along the pathways, pointing out various topiaries, until they find a good picnic spot on a vast stretch lawn that’s half out in the shade, half in the shade of a giant oak tree.</p>
<p>“Doesn’t look too damp,” Coulson observes, kneeling down to pat the grass. “It’s far away enough from the flower beds to avoid attracting insects as well.”</p>
<p>“Stop fussing, Phil, and move out of the way so I can lay out our blanket.” May throws the picnic blanket she’s tucked under her arm out for them to sit on, while Coulson drops the cool box down.</p>
<p>Skye flops down into the grass beside them face-first rather than on the blanket, humming as she enjoys the warmth and gentle vibrations that radiate from the ground. It’s a stark contrast from the constant mechanical buzz from the BUS’ engines, not just more natural and softer, but also distinctly different in the fact that she can also feel the <i>life</i> that exists within the plants and microfauna surrounding her. The blades of grass tickle her cheek pleasantly, a couple of them poking her nose. She closes her eyes and exhales slowly, the tension leaching out of her through her fingers as she presses them into the dirt.</p>
<p>“Are you trying to become one with the ground, Skye?” Coulson asks teasingly. “You know, for some reason, I don’t think suffocating yourself in mud is going to achieve that goal.”</p>
<p>“Shut up. It just has nice vibrations,” she sighs.</p>
<p>“The mud does?”</p>
<p>“No, the <i>earth</i>.”</p>
<p>“Ignore him,” May murmurs, resting her hand on her back. “You can relax, Skye.”</p>
<p>She pushes herself until she completely rolls over onto the blanket and lands on her side with her back to May. This new position results in May’s knees poking into her back and her legs brushing against Coulson’s. Their own calm vibrations join the natural ones, comforting her further to the point where she feels like she might actually be able to fall asleep, despite being in a public, and therefore potentially dangerous, place.</p>
<p>When her SO slips her boots and socks off for her so her feet can directly touch the grass, and her mentor begins delicately combing her fingers through Skye’s hair… she feels her respiratory and throat muscles start to vibrate. And she can’t even convince herself to be embarrassed about it.</p>
<p>May’s fingers pause very briefly as she comments, “That’s new,” before resuming playing with her hair.</p>
<p>“I told you Simmons wasn’t kidding when she told us Skye can purr,” Coulson says, his voice quiet and undisturbing but triumphant. “She’s even louder than that furball you had back at the Academy.”</p>
<p>“Remington just hated you so never purred around you, Phil,” May scoffs.</p>
<p>“You had a cat?” Skye murmurs, blinking up at her in bemusement. “And you named it <i>Remington?</i>”</p>
<p>“Remmy, for short. Remington Arms is a firearms and ammunition manufacturer,” Coulson explains. “Second year, May trained in Ops with an M24 sniper rifle, which was the military version of the Remington 700. Somehow a kitten got into the sniper range. It attached itself to May’s leg and didn’t let go until she got back to dorms and dug out a can of tuna. No microchip, couldn’t find an owner, so she kept it.”</p>
<p>May rolls her eyes. “He wasn’t <i>my</i> cat. He was a cat our Ops training unit collectively adopted. Maria took him after we graduated. Pretty sure she, Nat, and Clint all have joint custody now.” She starts twisting locks of Skye’s hair between her nimble hands as she begins to braid it. “And don’t worry, your purring isn’t that loud.”</p>
<p>“We should get a cat for the plane,” Skye hums.</p>
<p>“Fitz has been aiming for a monkey.”</p>
<p>“We are not getting a monkey,” May immediately shuts Coulson down. “Not when Fury won’t even approve a fish tank. I think we were lucky enough he approved Skye.”</p>
<p>Skye glances over her shoulder at her with an affronted scowl. “You say that like I’m your pet.” Her heart twinges at that last word, as she remembers when Ward, under the influence of the Berserker staff and pumped full of alien rage, called her Coulson’s pet. “I know you picked me off the streets like a stray, but it wasn’t like I was some helpless waif. I may have been on the run and yeah, homeless and jobless, but I had my van and I was surviving perfectly fine.”</p>
<p>“We know,” Coulson soothes, rubbing her calf. “We don’t mean it like that, Skye, and we don’t think of you like that. You’re an important and valuable member of our team. Not our pet.”</p>
<p>She sniffs, nuzzling back into the blanket. “Good. I - I know I’m an 0-8-4 and you’ve never had one of those be a person before, and SHIELD usually views them as objects, but I <i>hate</i> the whole idea of ‘ownership of <i>assets</i>’. Like people are nothing more than weapons in an armory. I’m not a possession.” She hesitates and then adds quietly, “I don’t mind being your kid, though. That is, if you’re not regretting the guardianship. You didn’t exactly sign up to be guardians to an 0-8-4.”</p>
<p>Coulson shoots her a piercing, concerned look. “<i>We</i> don’t regret it, but considering this is the second time you’ve suggested we might, I’m beginning to suspect you are.”</p>
<p>Skye releases a shaky exhalation, wanting to curl into a protective ball but knowing that she can’t do so without kicking her SO. She’s been subconsciously thinking about this a lot, actually. “My father killed over a hundred people, including god knows how many SHIELD agents, to try and get to me. I heard Ward talking to Fitzsimmons, wondering if agents that have suddenly gone MIA and AWOL in the past could be victims of his as well, as he attempted to track me down. If my dad finds out about you guys protecting me, he could try and kill you. Hell, if he finds out about the guardianship, he will <i>definitely</i> try and kill you.”</p>
<p>Coulson looks puzzled. “We know all of that. We knew that running into and dealing with your psycho father is a possibility we might have to deal with when we signed the papers.”</p>
<p>She shrugs helplessly. “I just - you shouldn’t have to deal with that. I’m more trouble than I’m worth. Sometimes I just think that -” She cuts herself off, knowing that Coulson and May will both get mad at her if she finishes her sentence. She can’t help it, though, feeling like a burden. Feeling as if they’d be better off without her on the team… feeling as if the world would be better off without her, period. “Never mind.”</p>
<p>Her SO stiffens. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten about how you told me you would commit suicide if your father or Spectre ever came close to capturing you again,” Coulson says warningly. </p>
<p>May’s hands abruptly stop braiding her hair. Skye winces, and turns her burning face into the blanket. “I’m sorry, she told you what?” she asks, bristling.</p>
<p>“Now? You want to talk about this <i>now?</i>” Skye groans. “I thought we came out today to enjoy spending time together? Why do you <i>always</i> have to be in overprotective parents mode?”</p>
<p>“Has Simmons given her a psych eval?” May is questioning Coulson, entirely ignoring Skye now, her voice grave.</p>
<p>“Nothing substantial,” Coulson replies, not looking at her even as Skye kicks him to get his attention. “And I think you’re forgetting that Simmons is a biochemist, not an MD or psychiatrist.”</p>
<p>“She has multiple PhDs, which makes her a doctor. Not a medical one, but it’s good enough in my books.”</p>
<p>“That’s - really not how it works. But Simmons hasn’t expressed any concerns about Skye’s mental state. She hasn’t shown any self-destructive behavior recently beyond accidentally overusing her powers.”</p>
<p>“Which gave her dozens of microfractures and severe bruising along her arms,” May snaps. “And has caused her to repeatedly pass out. Do you want to wait until she’s actively self-harming to step in? You’ve <i>seen</i> her scars, Phil, she obviously has a history -”</p>
<p>“Lighthouse,” Skye immediately chokes out. “Lighthouse, <i>lighthouse.</i>” She scrambles to her feet and staggers away from them both, pressing the balls of her palms into her eyes until they hurt, and holding her breath to stop herself from hyperventilating. God, why did May have to bring that up? Now the scars themselves feel like hot brands on her skin and she wants nothing more than to try and scratch them off.</p>
<p>“Skye -”</p>
<p>“<i>No.</i> Stop. Shut up. Don’t say anything - <i>fuck</i>.” She heads to the nearest rose bed, hoping that the calming scent of the flowers might help with the somersaults her stomach is now doing. Fight or flight has kicked in at this point, causing her body to thrum with adrenalin.</p>
<p>“Dammit,” she hears Coulson mutter behind her. “Skye, wait -”</p>
<p>She runs.</p>
<p>But not far.</p>
<p>When she reaches a copse of oak trees, one of them having decently low hanging, sturdy limbs, Skye hoists herself up into it and then climbs up into the fork. From that one, she twists her body to clamber into a high fork where she can sit comfortably and stretch out her legs.</p>
<p>The rustling leaves and steady, heavy vibrations of the ancient tree act like anchors for her powers, helping her calm down. She’s rather glad there aren’t other visitors or any employees around, because they would probably squawk in horror at the fact she’s breaking all of the Gardens’ rules and ‘defacing’ one of their trees.</p>
<p>Skye’s been climbing trees since she was a toddler. There’s always been something so relaxing about raising herself off ground level, getting above everything else. Away from all of the troubles of her youth, out of sight, and free from society and her foster parents of the month’s expectations. Trees are silent and solid and permanent. She can always rely on a good tree to never let her down - as long as she picks one to climb that doesn’t have any dead limbs to crack and snap beneath her. She hasn’t actually climbed a tree in years now; she almost forgot how much it pacifies her.</p>
<p>“I spoke to Streiten.”</p>
<p>Blinking in surprise, Skye peers down through the branches at her SO. Coulson has seated himself in the dirt at the base of the tree trunk, and seems to be patiently waiting for her to come down rather than climbing after her. Craning her neck, she tries to peer back over at their picnic spot. May is still there on the blanket, and appears to be getting their food ready. Given the fact that Coulson is actively avoiding making her talk about her past self-harm habits, she decides that she can give him a chance.</p>
<p>“When we refueled, in San Diego?” she asks quietly.</p>
<p>“I should have told you immediately after I returned what I’d learned, but I needed time to wrap my head around it myself,” he sighs. He doesn’t look up at her, as if he knows she’ll hide behind the foliage if he tries; she hasn’t got the energy to maintain eye contact right now. “After New York, I wasn’t dead for a couple of minutes, like they wrote in the version of my file available to me. Apparently, I was dead for days.”</p>
<p>“Days?” she repeats. Her heart thunders in her chest. “That’s impossible.”</p>
<p>“Dr Streiten said that Fury refused to let me go, moved Heaven and earth to make sure I lived. Scientists and doctors used medical procedures on me which were in no way legal or ethical. Drugs that aren’t on record anywhere. I still don’t know <i>what</i> procedures, or how exactly they brought me back to life.” His voice is drained and exhausted. Skye can’t help but feel terribly sorry for him, so she slips back down into the lower fork to be closer. “Once I was alive again, they had to keep me conscious to monitor my brain activity. But I was in extreme pain.”</p>
<p>“You wanted to die,” Skye realizes, remembering Coulson’s pleading when he was trapped in the memory machine. “That’s what you were flashing back to in Raina’s machine.”</p>
<p>“I did,” he confirms. “Streiten wishes that he’d let me. The trauma I’d suffered through was insane and I had so much neurological damage that he reckons it was crueler keeping me alive than just pulling the plug. So they performed intensive brain surgery on me… suppressed my real memories and replaced them with those of Tahiti. Added conditioning, so that I would shut down anybody asking me about my recovery and prying too deeply into what happened.” He finally glances up at her, his eyes dark and haunted. “Streiten said I lost my will to live, lost my mind, and lost myself. They gave me false memories in order to reset me back to my pre-New York personality and mentality. And then isolated me and kept me away from my old friends and coworkers to maintain control over my reintroduction to the world.”</p>
<p>“You feel violated,” she guesses. Because that’s how she’s always felt about her imprisonment and experimentation by Spectre. From what it sounds like, Coulson became a lab rat just like she did. </p>
<p>“I just don’t understand <i>why</i> they would do all of it. Why Fury would be so desperate to bring me back to life. And I have absolutely no clue how he did it.” He stares down at his hands. “Now I’m stuck thinking about the connection to Raina, the Clairvoyant, Centipede, and Quinn… and then the link to your father, Spectre, and <i>you</i>. And SHIELD. Always SHIELD.”</p>
<p>Skye slips out of the fork and pushes off the tree, landing gracefully on her feet beside him. Dropping to her knees, she curls up to his side. Coulson’s arm wraps around her shoulders in a half-hug. “We’ll find Quinn,” she says confidently. “And we’ll find the Clairvoyant. And then we’ll be able to find out what they know. We’re not letting this stay a mystery - we’ll get our answers.” Pausing, she then asks hesitantly, “Have you told May about any of this?”</p>
<p>Coulson falls strangely quiet. “Some things, but not everything,” he eventually replies. “She probably doesn’t think I’ve noticed, but she keeps trying to shut me down whenever I mention Tahiti.”</p>
<p>Her heart clenches. “You don’t think she was in on it all, do you?”</p>
<p>“I hope she wasn’t,” he responds, despondent. “I hope she isn’t now, too. What do you think, Skye? Should I still be trusting her? She’s my best friend… I want to. But with everything that’s been going on, I’m doubting a lot at the moment.”</p>
<p>She bows her head thoughtfully, resting her forehead on his shoulder. Thinking back on all the times May has supported and cared for her, and how fond and protective she is of Coulson, she can’t imagine the specialist being okay with the level of suffering her SO just described. May’s heart is warm beneath the stony, cold exterior she displays to hide her vulnerabilities from those willing to exploit them. It’s especially warm for Coulson. Skye’s not an idiot, nor is she blind; she sees the incredibly emotionally loaded looks, rife with unresolved (she <i>assumes</i> unresolved) sexual tension, they exchange on a daily basis. No, May wouldn’t be able to hurt Coulson. But she reckons May has secrets of her own.</p>
<p>“I think we can trust her,” she finally declares. “Just maybe we should keep some of the finer details to ourselves.”</p>
<p>Coulson quirks an eyebrow. “I honestly thought you might start lecturing me about the morality of lies of omission.”</p>
<p>“That would be kind of hypocritical of me considering I lied by omission to the rest of the team about my powers for months,” she reminds him. But then settles him with a flat look. “But in all seriousness, if you ever lie directly to my face again and keep secrets about things incredibly personal to me, I’m walking. I can understand that you and May were trying to emotionally protect me, but it also comes across as manipulation.” She holds her hand up when he opens his mouth. “You don’t need to apologize again for it. Just tell me you understand.”</p>
<p>“I do.” Coulson nods and then heaves himself back to his feet, teetering slightly and having to lean on the tree. When he offers a hand to Skye, she takes it without hesitation. “Let’s get back over there before May finds a way to hide the cookies from us.”</p>
<p>Skye cast a cautious glance over in her mentor’s direction.</p>
<p>As if he can tell what she’s worrying over, Coulson assures her, “May won’t bring <i>it</i> up again. You set that boundary, and she’ll respect it.” He hesitates and then tells her quietly, “I think you remind her of Natasha. It took a <i>long</i> time for Romanoff to adjust when she defected and joined SHIELD, and May, Barton, and I were in charge of her intake. There were bad days - some <i>really</i> bad days. It was hard for everybody, most of all for Natasha, of course, but it was rough for May watching her go through that. May doesn’t really let it show externally, but she cares a lot about people she considers herself responsible for - people she cares about. You’re a part of that group now.”</p>
<p>“Going to take me a while to get used to that,” Skye admits.</p>
<p>“Well, you’re stuck with us now,” Coulson grins. “So you’ll have the time.”</p>
<p>May doesn’t bring it up again. In fact, when Skye and Coulson join the specialist on the picnic blanket again, the first thing she does is offer Skye a paper plate piled high with her favorite finger sandwiches, carrot, cucumber and bell pepper sticks, and a slice of quiche. They talk about meaningless things as they eat: changing the soap on the BUS because of how Jemma has been complaining about it cracking her hands, Ward getting annoyed when Skye used her powers to cheat at knife throwing, their disastrous attempts at making fresh pasta the other day… things like that. May offers to give her flying lessons, which Skye gratefully accepts. Teasingly claiming that May is trying to one-up him as a guardian, Coulson says he’ll teach her how to make fudge from scratch. Food is definitely the way to her heart.</p>
<p>Once she’s eaten enough to feel like she can’t handle another cookie, Skye lies on her back in the grass and vibrates her fingertips scented with strawberry lemonade to attract common blue butterflies. The unusual winter heatwave that’s swept through England recently has resulted in a lot of the critters not going into hibernation yet. They’re delicate and curious little creatures, fluttering over her fingers.</p>
<p>Coulson and May watch her with affectionate smiles, quietly discussing how they’re going to fly to Milan tomorrow. Skye sees her SO dig his phone out at one point to take photos of her, but doesn’t tell him to stop; she knows his phone is encrypted and secure, and the pictures will be stored safely and only sent to people they trust.</p>
<p>Once they’ve finished eating and the sky has clouded over in the late afternoon, they decide to head back to the BUS. Skye dashes quickly into the Gardens’ gift shop, though, to get souvenirs for their teammates. She buys some home-brewed honey mead for Ward, some bee-shaped hairclips for Jemma, and then, for Fitz, just because she can’t <i>not</i> buy it for him, a monkey keyring carved out of English chestnut wood. Coulson grabs some tea towels for the BUS, while May selects a jaw of raw wildflower set honey, stating it’s far better than sugar in tea. </p>
<p>“You have a beautiful family,” the lady behind the hill compliments them, smiling brightly at Coulson as their total is rung up. “I wish my girl was as willing as yours to go on parent-daughter day-outs.”</p>
<p>“Yeah, we’re lucky she’s okay with us cramping her style with our own,” Coulson jokes.</p>
<p>“You’d have to have style to begin with to do that,” Skye quips.</p>
<p>Coulson looks mock-offended. “You think I don’t have style?”</p>
<p>“Does ‘white, middle-aged, suburban baseball coach dad who’s enthusiastic about war history and vintage cars’ count as a style? Because those are the vibes you give off. Plus, you named your convertible Corvette <i>Lola</i>, I think that says enough.”</p>
<p>May bursts out laughing when Coulson splutters, turning red.</p>
<p>Skye grins triumphantly.</p><hr/>
<p>The next morning, after they’ve landed in Milan, Skye fulfills another achievement. She runs straight to Coulson’s office in her pajamas to tell him that she has a lead on Quinn. She’s discovered an invoice from his shell companies for something that cost ten million dollars from Cybertek Incorporated. They’re a small company that deals with advanced robotics and technical research.</p>
<p>She can’t tell what Quinn has bought from them, but it has to be important, considering Cybertek has hired a private-security outfit formed from ex-military thugs and mercenaries to move the package; they’re transporting it on a countryside train from Verona to Zagreb, probably directly into Quinn’s hands. As it’s a mere week before Christmas, the train is likely to be busy due to people traveling across Europe to get home, which will provide the perfect cover for the security guards by allowing them to blend in.</p>
<p>Coulson is clearly impressed with her work, because he contacts the Italian authorities to discuss it all over with them, and as it turns out, they’ve also been monitoring the situation. He heads out for a quick meeting for a SHIELD contact called Russo who works with the Italian police, who is heading the current operation, and when her SO returns, it’s to tell her they have the go-ahead to take over.</p>
<p>They explain all of this to the team in the briefing room so Coulson can lay out the mission. “If everything goes as planned, Cybertek's security team won't even know we were on the train. So we're going in undercover.”</p>
<p>May’s lip curls up in distaste. “I hate undercover,” she mutters. Skye has to agree that undercover sucks. She’s been undercover for most of her teen life and it’s draining as hell to maintain.</p>
<p>Coulson’s little smile says that he already knows of May’s dislike. “May and Ward, you're front and center. May will be a wealthy diplomat, Ward will be a porter assigned to meeting her needs. Once we locate the package, you'll tag it with a tracker. Simmons and I will be your back-up, posing as father and daughter. Skye and Fitz, you'll be pretending to be a couple on a whirlwind trip around Europe - and running our communications, monitoring the op.”</p>
<p>“Wait, so no babysitter for us?” Skye asks, raising an eyebrow.</p>
<p>“You’re approved for the field,” her SO tells her. “And more than capable of defending yourself and Fitz, so as far as I’m concerned, you’re his babysitter.”</p>
<p>She turns to the engineer, smirking. “You hear that?”</p>
<p>Fitz rolls his eyes. “I’m <i>still</i> older than you, Skye.”</p>
<p>Coulson appears amused by their banter, but focuses back on the mission, informing them, “After the package is tagged, you’ll trace it to Quinn. Once we capture Quinn, we'll be one step closer to the Clairvoyant.”</p>
<p>It sounds like it should be a smooth and relatively easy operation, but of course, when has anything ever been easy for them? They manage to get onto the train no problem, and her and Fitz’s cover as girlfriend and boyfriend works despite one or two hiccups; she pickpockets a set of keys from a porter and they sneak into the luggage car to set up their monitoring and comms equipment. For the first twenty or so minutes, it seems as if everything is going well. Going well to the point where they even feel comfortable making a little bit of small talk, with Skye deciding to brave the rough seas to ask Fitz about his thoughts on an 0-8-4 being a person and whether or not that makes her a liability.</p>
<p>The engineer just shakes his head apologetically and says that she’s the first, as far as he’s aware. But that classification doesn’t mean that she’s dangerous, as all SHIELD 0-8-4’s are often labeled. It’s the fact that they’re of unknown origin which makes agents often think they’re potentially harmful, because they rarely understand how they work. Skye might be a medical mystery with her altered DNA, but she’s still mostly human… just different.</p>
<p>When all of their equipment and comms go dead, however, Skye quickly throws herself into battle mode, aware that the malfunctions probably mean they’ve been made. It’s likely that Cybertek is using some kind of electronic scrambler, which has to mean they know the team is there. Skye’s stomach twists in discomfort and alarm. The two of them stand to make their way back down the train towards Coulson and Jemma when the car’s door smashes open.</p>
<p>Skye feels the vibrations of the bullets leaving the gun’s chamber before she sees their attacker wielding the weapon. “Fitz, get down!” She tackles him down behind a shelf of luggage, waiting for the man to stop shooting to reload before stepping out and quaking him against the wall.</p>
<p>The guy doesn’t get knocked unconscious, though, and is grappling with Fitz physically before Skye has the chance to quake him again. She tries to tear the man off the engineer to engage him herself, her heart pounding with adrenaline in her chest, but before she gets the chance to, their attacker raises a charging, glowing blue grenade-shaped object into the air.</p>
<p>Jemma runs in screaming about them getting made and grabs the man from behind to shield them from the grenade’s blast before Skye can stop her. It knocks both the biochemist and the man to the ground, their eyes glassy and faces streaked with bluish-purple veins. It’s only Jemma’s calm vibrations that say she’s knocked out, not dead, that keep Skye from freaking out.</p>
<p>“She’s okay, she’s okay, she’s breathing,” Skye reassures Fitz when she checks her over. He’s bouncing up and down anxiously on his heels and breathing heavily, looking stricken. “Her heart rate is elevated but steady. It - it looks like she’s been hit with a dose of dendrotoxin.”</p>
<p>“Clearly evolved,” Fitz mumbles, tucking a duffle bag under Jemma’s head and tenderly brushing her hair away from her face. He then gently closes her eyes so she looks more like she’s sleeping rather than dead. “Airborne, most likely. Judging by the volume of the dose, she’ll probably wake up in an hour or so.”</p>
<p>Skye clenches her jaw. “We’ve got to get out of here, find the others and figure out what to do next. We can’t take Jemma with us, though… but we can’t leave her like this. Let’s hide here and leave her with my Night Night Gun to protect herself, just in case. I don’t need it when I have my powers.”</p>
<p>“Look at her little face,” Fitz sighs fondly, as they shift her out of the aisle and half cover her up with other bags. “She’d be so embarrassed.” And Skye can’t help but chuckle at that, because god… she really would.</p>
<p>They drag the unconscious Cybertek merc across the car to find an empty crate, which they throw him into before Fitz shoots him with a couple of dendrotoxin round to keep him unconscious. Skye is just checking the rest of the team’s trackers - and they’re all completely offline, so they can’t find them - when the train starts screeching to a halt.</p>
<p>The breaks squeal with the sheer force of it, almost sending the two of them toppling over. They peer out of the windows to see that the package is being taken off the train and transported by car now. The Cybertek team are most likely taking it straight to Quinn. This might be their one chance to track the corrupt millionaire down and discover his link to Centipede and the Clairvoyant - but it will slip through their fingers if they don’t act soon.</p>
<p>With their commanding officer and two specialists gone, that leaves Skye as the only combat-approved team member in the field - and therefore, the one in charge. She can’t help but feel vastly out of her depth; she’s a consultant, not an actual agent, and yet it’s fallen to her to continue running this mission. Even with her powers, she and Fitz are drastically outgunned and outmanned. Both Coulson and May’s training kick in at that point, their voices in her head advising her what to do.</p>
<p>The two of them follow the cars’ tire tracks, and they don’t have to travel far to reach a large Mediterranean mansion estate. Crouching behind shrubbery, they observe Quinn greeting the Cybertek group on the porch steps. Skye exhales in satisfaction; their plan worked. They’ve managed to track Quinn down, despite all of his maneuverings to avoid them.</p>
<p>“You and Coulson were right. Cybertek led us to Quinn,” Fitz acknowledges begrudgingly.</p>
<p>She nods, ordering him, “Activate the tracker. Let the team know we're here.”</p>
<p>Then she turns back to the mansion, lifting her chin slightly so she can properly observe the entranceway and the positioning of all the guards. Quinn is vanishing inside with the package. He could disappear again while they just stay here hidden in the bushes waiting for their back-up to arrive. Placing her hand on the ground, she sends out a small wave of vibrations through the dirt so she can locate the guards. There are a <i>lot</i> of them; there’s no way she’ll be able to take them all out without risking Fitz getting hurt. Her only option is sneaking around the back to get inside and hoping security is laxer there.</p>
<p>After activating the tracker with a beep, Fitz narrows his eyes at her, realizing, “You want to go in.”</p>
<p>She huffs. “We can't let Quinn get away again.” When the engineer raises an eyebrow dubiously, she insists, “If Coulson were here, he wouldn't let that happen. He wouldn't want us to let that happen. If we lose Quinn now, it could be <i>months</i> before we get another shot at him. Even if we just manage to slow him down enough so that he can’t leave before the team gets here, we’ll have done <i>something</i>, rather than just sitting back and allowing him to escape again.”</p>
<p>“You're right,” Fitz agrees. “Fine… Let's do it. You got a plan?”</p>
<p>“Uh…” Her brain is whirring as she attempts to come up with one on the fly, running through the possibilities. “Can you disable their cars while I sneak around the back?”</p>
<p>Fitz shoots her a confused look and then grabs her arm, tugging it insistingly. “No, no, no, if we’re doing this, then we are doing this <i>together</i>. I’m not letting you go in there alone.”</p>
<p>“Fitz -”</p>
<p>“<i>No</i>,” the engineer repeats ferociously. “Look, I know Coulson said that you’re my babysitter and told you to protect me, but I made promises and I’m meant to be taking care of you too.”</p>
<p>She casts him a sideways, confused look. “What do you mean?”</p>
<p>“May… might have talked to me,” Fitz admits.</p>
<p>Skye groans. God only knows what the specialist told him. “Okay, lay it on me, what did she say?”</p>
<p>“She’s <i>scarily</i> protective of you. She told me that you have reckless, lone-wolf tendencies and lack a decent sense of self-preservation.”</p>
<p>Skye blinks, feeling slightly offended. “I have plenty of self-preservation, thank you very much,” she says defensively. “I’ve literally survived on the streets since I was fifteen while on the run and hiding superpowers.”</p>
<p>“Hey, that’s just what she said! I’m on your side here, I know you can handle yourself.” Fitz raises his hands into the surrender position. “<i>But</i>… she doesn’t seem to be wrong about the lone-wolf thing! You <i>are</i> insisting on entering hostile territory alone. I promised her that if you tried anything stupid, I would try and stop you, but if I couldn’t, I would follow you and do the stupid thing with you to try and make it less stupid. So I’m coming, alright?” He’s not going to be allowing her any arguments here, so she sighs in defeat and nods. Fitz looks smug for a brief second before he slips back into determined mission mode. “So you said the first step is disabling the cars?”</p>
<p>“Can you do that?”</p>
<p>“Oh yeah, with my bare hands,” Fitz waves his dominant one dismissively. “But that would waste time.” To her shock, he digs a Swiss army knife out of his pocket and flips the main blade open, smirking at her. “We could just slash the tires.”</p>
<p>Skye laughs and claps on him on the back, genuinely amused. “Now you’re talking, Fitz!”</p>
<p>“I like to think it’s your influence on me that’s encouraging these destructive thoughts.”</p>
<p>“Nah, there’s a secret little rebel inside of you that’s dying to create some chaos.”</p>
<p>Since she has a penknife of her own in her back pocket, the two of them work together to creep past the guards and stab the rear tires of all the vehicles, deflating them to make the vehicles impossible to drive. It’s a quicker job than she expects, and soon the two of them are silently sneaking around the back of the property and into the house in search of Quinn. Fitz wields his Night Night Gun while Skye keeps her dominant hand at the ready, in case she needs to quake anybody.</p>
<p>The adrenalin flooding her veins is making her tremble with anticipation, but the breathing exercises May taught her help her focus. When they overhear a woman who was part of the Cybertek group on the train talking about Quinn’s package being downstairs in the basement, she and Fitz exchange a look before hurrying in that direction.</p>
<p>It’s probably because she’s so utterly horrified at the sight of Mike, alive but terribly scarred, inside some sort of stasis chamber, that Skye doesn’t realize that they’ve been approached from behind until it’s too late. She feels the vibrations of three men ripple through the ground, but as she whips around to quake them back, pain explodes in her left thigh and then her right shoulder. The force of the bullet tearing through her shoulder in particular jerks her back, and as her left leg crumples beneath her, she collapses to the floor.</p>
<p>“<i>SKYE</i>,” Fitz yells.</p>
<p>Trying to fight against the blinding, blazing agony, she shakily raises her hand. She doesn’t get the chance to call on her powers because the muzzle of a gun is pressed firmly into her shoulder wound, making her choke as pain flares from the sight across her entire body. It makes her feel like she’s on fire and her mind has utterly disconnected from her body, her limbs unresponsive because of the nervous overload.</p>
<p>Blinking through the blurriness, she grits her teeth in a growl when she sees that Quinn has Fitz restrained and handcuffed, and he’s pointing a gun directly at the engineer’s head. A gun that just fired two shots at her. Mancini, the head of Cybertek’s security team, has secured Fitz by the throat.</p>
<p>“Hello, Daisy,” Quinn greets her, making her swallow. He knows her birth name. “The Clairvoyant told me to expect you. I don’t honestly know who was more excited to know you were gonna turn up here… him, or your dear old dad. Ah ah,” he warns, pressing the gun muzzle to Fitz’s temple when Skye shifts, trying to figure out where to aim a quake at him without hurting the engineer, who has his eyes screwed shut and is ashen with fear. “I know what you can do with those powers of yours. You so much as <i>twitch</i>, sweetie, and this one gets a bullet in his brain. The slightest tremor of an earthquake, and he dies.”</p>
<p>Shaking with rage, Skye slowly unclenches her fist, moving it down to her thigh to try and place pressure there. Through the pain, she can feel the bullet lodged against her femur. The gunshot wound in her shoulder is a through and through, and the sharp, nauseating scent of fresh blood is filling her nose. She’s starting to bleed out. Her head is even beginning to spin from the blood loss she’s suffered so far.</p>
<p>“Good girl,” Quinn praises her smugly. She shudders. “The Clairvoyant said that threatening anybody on your team would probably make you compliant, and I’m glad to see that’s true. You’re an attack dog, but you can be muzzled, just like Daddy claimed. I’m so happy you came, Daisy.”</p>
<p>“That’s not her name, y’bastard,” Fitz hisses in her defense. He wheezes when Mancini tightens his grasp on his throat, and Skye can’t help the snarl that rips out of her in response.</p>
<p>“Touchy,” Quinn tuts. “I didn’t think you’d be so feral. Of course, I knew you had fire. You did shoot me in the leg after all the last time we met face-to-face.”</p>
<p>Shit, so he does remember that.</p>
<p>“Shooting you in the shoulder was advised by the Clairvoyant, to disorientate you, but that extra bullet in your leg is payback for the bullet you put in mine.”</p>
<p>“You’re sick,” Fitz spits at him.</p>
<p>“Fitz,” she tries to protest feebly, not wanting him to draw any more attention to himself and get hurt.</p>
<p>“You’re just a puppy, all bark but no bite,” Quinn laughs at him, looking amused by the way he’s vibrating with rage. “Unlike your team’s pet earthquake machine here.” His eyes wander over to the chamber in which Mike lays unconscious, and a sinister smile crosses over his face. “Let’s invite somebody else to this conversation. Another <i>machine</i>.”</p>
<p>Skye honestly can’t find the energy or brainpower to concentrate on everything that’s happening, her consciousness fading in and out, as Quinn opens up the strange pod and Mike awakens. What she does notice, however, is the fact that the expression on Mike’s face is blank and impassive, as if all of his emotions have been leached out of him. When Quinn starts talking to him about orders, Skye jolts in outraged realization; the Clairvoyant and Centipede have turned Mike into one of their soldiers and are now controlling him. Fitz seems to be coming to the same realization, judging by his frightened, panicked face.</p>
<p>When Mancini releases the engineer’s throat to attach the package, an advanced prosthetic leg, to Mike, Skye has to close her eyes and bite her lip to contain her cry when he screams. Seconds later, though, he’s back to that blank look, and it’s utterly chilling. Quinn looks <i>delighted</i>.</p>
<p>“I know you get your orders from the Clairvoyant, so that means you're not allowed to hurt me, right?” Quinn checks.</p>
<p>“No,” Mike replies flatly.</p>
<p>“What if I tried to hurt you? Would you stop me?”</p>
<p>“No. I would not.”</p>
<p>Her voice a croak, cracked with pain, she tries, “Mike, listen. I do not know what they're doing to you, but if you’re still in there… we have to get out of here.” Fitz eyes her, giving the tiniest shake of his head, a desperate plea for her to not draw attention to herself. But Skye has to try. Mike is her friend, she can’t abandon him. “Mike, <i>please</i>.”</p>
<p>Quinn raises an eyebrow at her attempt to reach him, and then nods down at her, asking Mike coldly, “And if I wanted you to hurt her... you know, to kill her... will you?” Skye stares up at him with a lump in her throat, her fear now overtaking her pain from the two gunshot wounds. “I mean, what would hurt Agent Coulson more than to lose his pet super? Oh, sorry. I mean, his daughter. That is what you are now on paper, right?” Quinn asks her mockingly. She just glares at him.</p>
<p>“Those aren't my orders,” Mike responds, his eyes empty and voice lifeless. “She's not who I'm supposed to kill. The Clairvoyant and the doctor want her alive. They are pleased you have acquired her, but equally displeased she has been damaged more than they advised.”</p>
<p><i>Damaged</i>. Like she’s a possession, rather than a person. <i>An asset.</i> Skye feels sick.</p>
<p>“What’s one extra bullet wound?” Quinn dismisses. “She’ll heal.”</p>
<p>More could have been said, but Skye blacks out for a couple of seconds because of a tidal wave that washes over her that is comprised of pure, terrifying numbing pain, that makes everything go fuzzy and dark. Her powers are completely out of reach right now; the world is dead and silent around her, to the point where she can’t even feel her own vibrations anymore. She’s going into shock, she can tell.</p>
<p>“Skye, Skye, stay with me,” she hears Fitz’s frantic voice, feels his warm palms on her cheeks. Quinn must have released him and shoved him down towards her.</p>
<p>Mike is gone.</p>
<p>“Kill the spare one,” Quinn orders Mancini with a lazy wave of his hand as he peers down at a document he’s reading over. “The girl is the only one they want and she’s about to pass out, so we don’t need the kid as leverage anymore.”</p>
<p>Mancini nods and takes aim at Fitz, squeezing the trigger twice. Her horror utterly overwhelming, Skye just reacts on instinct, trying to reach out to stop the two bullets and redirect them with her powers. Her control over them is so weak, however, that all she manages to do is slow them slightly. But it’s enough time to do what she needs to. If Quinn is planning on taking her to the Clairvoyant and to her father, who are now confirmed to be connected, then she would rather die than go with him. And she refuses to let Fitz get killed because of her. He’s like a brother to her; she dragged him into this mess, and it’s her job to get him out of it.</p>
<p>So it’s with absolutely no regret that with a sudden surge of adrenalin, she flings herself in front of the engineer as a human shield and takes the two bullets for him.</p>
<p>Acceptance. That this is who she is, what she wants to do. She wants to be her own fucking person and she wants to stand on her own two feet… making the choice to save her friend’s life and put others above herself, because that’s what really matters.</p>
<p>The first pierces through her abdomen, a few inches left of her belly button. The second lands slightly higher, center mass. Both are so painful that she instantly blacks out the moment they strike her, only returning to semi-consciousness when she hears Fitz shrieking her name and Quinn yelling at Mancini.</p>
<p>“<i>THEY WANT HER ALIVE!</i>” Quinn is shouting angrily.</p>
<p>“I wasn’t aiming for her!” Mancini bellows in response.</p>
<p>“How the hell am I meant to take her to them now she’s dying!? Fucking forget it! Shots like that, she’ll be dead in the next hour. Not even the doctor will be able to save her from that. I’ve gotta get myself underground before they find out she’s been killed on my watch and come after me!” Quinn storms out of the basement, Mancini following behind him.</p>
<p>Leaving her and Fitz alone in the basement. Lying in a puddle of blood. <i>Her</i> blood, and the pool is increasing in size, stinking of sickly iron and bright red because it’s not just venous blood she’s leaking everywhere - one of the bullets has nicked an artery. And yes, Skye is in a lot of pain, so much so that it’s an effort to breathe, let alone stay unconscious, but she knows that arterial blood loss like this is not good. It’s not good at all. </p>
<p>Her stomach is lurching, forcing her to retch, and the metallic tang in her mouth plus the thick liquid filling her throat probably means she’s starting to choke up blood. She can’t stand - Fitz can’t carry her because he can’t move her without removing the pressure he’s desperately trying to put on all of her wounds at once. She’s going to die down here. She’s actually dying, and considering the blackness already creeping into the edges of her vision, she’s going <i>fast</i>. </p>
<p>“Stay with me, Skye, c’mon, you’ve gotta stay awake,” Fitz begs, and that’s what she decides to focus on. She peers up at him through partially lidded eyes as she feels herself growing progressively weaker and weaker, feels something buried deep within her beginning to drain away. Her heart wrenches at the sound of Fitz’s anguished sobbing. “You’re gonna be okay. The team are gonna be here soon and Jemma - Jemma will know how t’help, she’ll save you, al’right!? But y’gotta stay awake! We - we’re celebrating our first Christmas together next week, aren’t we!? You don’t wanna miss that! Jemma’s gonna bake mince pies, and we’re gonna force Ward to wear a Santa hat -”  </p>
<p>She wants to close her eyes. She does. She’s tired. Exhausted. In fact, maybe she should take a nap right here. That panics Fitz even more.</p>
<p>“No, no, no, don’t fall asleep, Skye! <i>SOMEBODY HELP!</i>” he howls. “<i>PLEASE, COULSON, MAY, WARD! J-JEMMA! PLEASE, WE NEED H-HELP!</i> Hang on, Skye, please, <i>p-please hang on</i>.”</p>
<p>At least she’s not going out alone, she dazedly thinks. She’d like to say something, thank Fitz for being the best brother she’s ever had, ask him to tell Jemma she’s brilliant and wonderful and stronger than she knows, tell Ward that he would make a great supervising officer in the future if he’s a little more patient, and he needs to practice playing Battleship and knife throwing some more. And also ask Fitz to tell Coulson and May they were and are incredible parents, and they should probably get their heads out of their asses because they clearly like each other.</p>
<p>But she barely has the energy to breathe. She can’t speak. Her vocal cords won’t respond.</p>
<p>All she’s able to manage is moving her blood-soaked hand a couple of inches up to nudge gently at Fitz’s fingers. A silent thank you, for staying with her until the end. Because she’s not so scared with him being here beside her. She’s terrified, but also the idea of death is not a new one to her, and this weirdly feels inevitable. Because with her powers, she’s felt the vibration of atoms and molecules and beyond, and she’s seen life and death and all that’s in between. Now the only thing left is for her to experience them all.</p>
<p>Her eyes flutter shut slowly.</p><hr/>
<p>
  <i>“I wonder what your gift will be, once you have been activated. We’ll soon find out. Discovery requires experimentation, after all.”</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>“I - I don’t understand. You want me to hold it? What is it?”</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>“It’s called the Obelisk, and a very few special people can touch it without suffering, dear girl. Your father brought you to me as he believes you are one of them. Knowing who your mother was, I am of the same assumption. Go on… pick it up.”</i>
</p><hr/>
<p>
  <i>“Oh baby girl, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I never meant for you to suffer. But this is your birthright, your destiny… one day you’ll understand and be able to forgive me, Daisy. This needs to happen so you can become your strongest self.”</i>
</p><hr/>
<p>
  <i>“Where’s my dad? What did you do to him?”</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>“Dear girl, once he was able to use the Obelisk to change you, he was no longer useful to us anymore. His goals and ideas concerning you did not align with ours, and we couldn’t risk him disrupting our study of your miraculous abilities and remarkable DNA, could we? Don’t worry, we will take very good care of you here. Now… don’t struggle as we get you strapped onto the operating table, or we’ll have to drug you again. You don’t like the drugs, do you? That’s a good girl. This will only pinch a little.”</i>
</p><hr/>
<p>
  <i>“The more you scream, dear Daisy, the more we have to hurt you.”</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>“Please… stop… I can’t…”</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>“Oh dear, you are being quite uncooperative today, aren’t you? Such a shame. We’ll just have to inject you with a paralytic and intubate you again to take our biopsies and spinal fluid. And I don’t think you deserve the anesthetic given your stubbornness.”</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>“No… please…”</i>
</p><hr/>
<p>“No… please…” Skye echoes, choking through the thick, hot liquid iron filling her mouth.</p>
<p>Everything fades.</p>
<p>She sinks into the darkness, which embraces her with deafening silence and grace.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>*throws confetti into the air*</p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thank you for reading - I hope you enjoyed! I would really appreciate your support in the form of leaving kudos, and would absolutely love to read your thoughts in comments.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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